F «5 


















:^ 



*-**. 



v 









REMARKS 



HENRY B. STANTON 



IN THE 



REPRESENTATIVES' HALL 



ON THE 23rd AND 24th OF FEBRUARY, 



BEFORE THE COMMITTEE OF THE 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

OF lASSACHTT'SETTS, 
TO WHOM WAS REFERRED 



SUNDRY MEMORIALS ON THE SUBJECT 



OF SLAVERY. 



BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED BY ISAAC KNAPP, 

No. 25, Cornhill. 



1S37. 



In B*afe<i&gt 
Cornell Uatv. 

d Feb Od 






REMARKS, &C 



The Committee of the House of Representatives, oa 
Slavery, consists of the following gentlemen: 

Messrs. Lee of Templeton, 

Richardson of Boston, 
Eaton of Haverhill, • 
Thompson of Charlestown, 
Huntington of Northampton, 
Collins of Chester, 
Cooley of Hawley, 
Newton of Washington, 
Goodrich of Roxbury, 
Perkins of New Bedford, 
Barstow of Rochester, 
Crosby of Brewster, 
Coffin of Edgarton, and 
Upton of Nantucket. 

Representatives' Hall, } 

Thursday afternoon, Feb. 22, 1837. J 

The Committee of the House, to whom was referred me- 
morials on the subject of slavery, assembled in the Repre- 
sentatives' Hall, at 3 o'clock, P. M. 



4 REMARKS OF 

George S. Hillard, Esq. of Boston, then addressed the 
Committee, as Counsel, in aid of the prayer of the follow- 
ing memorial : 

% 

To the Honorable the Senate and House 

of Representatives of ^Massachusetts : 

The undersigned, citizens of in the Commonwealth of 

burette, have learned with astonishment and alarm, that the House 
resentatives of the United States did, on the IStii of January last, 
adopt a resolution in the words following, to wit: 

' Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or 

papers, relating in any way or to any extent whatever, to the subject ot 

slavery, or the abolition of "slavery, shall, without being either printed or 

i, he laid upon the table, and that no further action whatever shall 

be had thereon.' 

Your memorialists, regarding said resolution as a virtual denial to the 
people of the right to petition for a redress of grievances, a violation of the 
spirit of the 1st Article of the Amendments to the Constitution of the Uni- 
ted States— as an unwarrantable and daring assumption of authority, at 
war with the fundamental principles of our Republican government — ut- 
terly destructive of the rights of the minority— a gross insult to the sover- 
eignty of the entire people — and dangerous to the union of the States: do, 
therefore, respectfully and earnestly request your honorable bodies TO 
PROTEST, without delay, in the name of THE PEOPLE OF THIS 
[ONWEALTH, against said resolution,— and to invoke the House 
ttives of the United States, to IMMEDIATELY RESCIND 
I I And your memorialists further ask, that a copy of said protest and 
invocation maj be sent to each of the Senators and Representatives of this 
Commonwealth in Congress, to be by them laid before that body. 

Mr. Hillard having concluded, Mr. Henry B. Stan- 
ton then addressed the committee, in substance, as 
follows : — 

Mr. Chairman and gi nth mi n of the Committee : — 

My name is attached to one of the memorials on your 
table. While I appear before you to urge the prayer of 
the petitioners, I come not as a political partizan. I am 



HENRY B. STANTON. 5 

not a politician. Nor as a moral partizan. I represent no 
party in morals. Nor as an ' abolitionist.' I appear be- 
fore you as a citizen of this Commonwealth, yielding to 
none other in attachment to its prosperity and peace. 
But the highest character in which I stand before you to 
day, is that of a subject of God's moral government. 
I AM A MAN : and I address myself to MEN. From the 
character of this Committee, I am persuaded that the 
prayer of these memorialists will receive a respectful and 
a patient consideration. If I am asked whether these 
petitioners are abolitionists, I can only conjecture. Many 
of them I know are not. Probably many of them are. 
Of their character, I may speak more fully in another 
connection. Setting myself aside, suffice it to say for 
the present, they are of the bone and muscle of the Com- 
monwealth : — the industrious, the intelligent, the patri- 
otic, the moral. The men upon whose integrity, wisdom 
and firmness, the Commonwealth must rely in the hour of 
peril. Such men deserve a candid hearing. As to the 
number of the memorialists, it may be asked, have all, in 
the several towns who are friendly to the objects petition- 
ed for, signed these memorials 1 I am instructed to say, 
that this is by no means the case. Various circumstan- 
ces, prominent among which was lack of time, have con- 
spired to render the number, both of memorials and me- 
morialists, much less than it would otherwise have been. 
The right of petition, the virtual denial of that right by 
Congress in its resolution of the 18th of January last, and 
the duty of this legislature to protest against said resolu- 
tion, have been ably argued by the gentleman who has just 
sat down. I shall, therefore, confine my remarks to the 
first three propositions in the following memorial. 
1* 



6 REMARKS OF 

• To the Honorable the Senate, and House 

of Representatives of Massachusetts. 
The undersigned, citizens of Massachusetts, respectfully pray your 
Honorable bod) : 

1st. To declare i hat Congress lias a Constitutional right to abolish 
slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. 

2d. To declare that this right ought to Le exercised without delay. 
3d. To invoke the .Senators and Representatives of this Common- 
wealth, in Congress, to use th< ir utmost exertions to procure the immedi- 
ate abolition of Blavery and the domestic slave trade within the limits of 
the District of Columbia. 

4th. To protest, in the name of the People of this state, against the 
resolution passed by the House of Representatives of the U. States on the 
18th of Jan., in reference to petitions on the suhject of slavery.' 

The plan I shall pursue, in this discussion is the fol- 
lowing : — 

1. Enquire — Has Congress the Constitutional power to 
abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of Co- 
lumbia ? 

2. Ought Congress — i. e. is it expedient for Congress 
to exercise this power immediately? 

3. Has M;i>sachusetts any interest and responsibility 
in regard to these questions ? — and if so, is it such an in- 
terest, and such a responsibility, that she ought to grant 
the prayer of the petitioners. 

Firxt. — lias Congress power to abolish slavery, and the 
sLwe trade, in the District of Columbia? 

My excuse for discussing this branch of the inquiry, 
is — 1. It is the hinge upon which all the questions of du- 
ty and expediency here at issue, turn. 2. The power of 
Congress to do this, is now extensively denied. States- 
men and politicians, not only at the South, but even at 
the North, are striving, by some process, to make them- 
selves believe, against their better judgment, that, despite 
the plain provisions of the Constitution, Congress has no 
right to interfere with slavery in the District. 



HENRY B. STANTON, * 

I boldly assume the position that Congress has this 
power. 

1. Permit me to trouble the Committee with some his- 
torical proof . 

This power has always been admitted till recently. 

(1.) Hon. Joel B. Sutherland, in a speech on the floor 
of Congress, in April, 1836, said, ' Such a right [right 
to legislate upon the subject of slavery in the District] 
had never been till recently denied.'* 

(2.) The American Quarterly Review, published at 
Philadelphia, said, about a year since — ' It would be hard- 
ly necessary to state this as a distinct proposition, [the 
power of Congress to abolish slavery and the slave trade 
in the District] had it not been occasionally questioned. 
The truth of the assertion, however, is too obvious to ad- 
mit of argument, and we believe, has never been disputed 
by persons who are familiar with the Constitution.' The 
high reputation of this periodical, is well known to the 
Committee. 

(3.) In January, 1802, the Grand Jury of Alexan- 
dria, in the District, asked Congress for ' Legislative 

REDRESS.' 

(4.) In March, 1816, the House of Representatives, 
on motion of Hon. John Randolph, of Va. ' Resolved, 
That a committee be appointed to enquire into the ex- 
istance of an inhuman and illegal traffic of slaves, carried 
on in and through the District of Columbia, and to re- 
port whether any and what measures are necessary for 
putting a stop to the same.' 

(5.) In March, 1827, eleven hundred citizens of the 
District petitioned Congress for the abolition of the slave 
trade and the gradual abolition of slavery in the District. 

* See Globe, May 9, 1836. 



8 REMARKS OF 

(G.) In 1826, the political press in the District urged 
the recession of the District back to Maryland and Vir- 
ginia, on the ground that Congress possessed the power 
to abolish slavery in the District, and might be induced 
to exercise it.* 

(7.) On the 12th December, 1827, a memorial was 
presented by lion. Mr. Barney, of Maryland, on the sub- 
ject of slavery in the District, and was laid on the table 
and ordered to be printed. Hon. George McDvrgU ob- 
jected to the printing, but expressly admitted the right 
of Congress ' to grant to the people of the District any 
measures, which they may deem necessary to free them- 
selves from this deplorable evil.'t 

(8.) In 1828, the Legislature of Pennsylvania, by an 
almost unanimous vote, adopted a resolution, requesting 
their Senators ■ to procure, if practicable, the passage of 
a law to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.' 

(9.) In January, 1829, the House of Representatives 
of the U. S., by a large majority, instructed the Com- 
mittee on the District, « to inquire into the expediency 
[not the poivcr,] of providing by law for the gradual abo- 
lition of slavery in the District.' How nobly, Mr. Chair- 
man, does this resolution contrast with those adopted by 
the House last Session, — with the foggy and disgraceful 
report of Mr. Pinckney, with the unconstitutional reso- 
lution of the 18th of January last, and the insane con- 
duct of the House under that resolution ? Who will dare 
to deny, that in seven years, the cause of human free- 
dom in this country, has fearfully retrograded ? But to 
return to our proofs. 



■» <*•, 



Bee Alexandria Gazette for 1826. 
■f- See CI .iii bourne's address to the people of Mississippi, in tlie GIoV« 
cfMay, 1386. 



HENRY B. STANTON. 



' (10.) In January, 1829, the Assembly of New York, 
adopted a resolution, instructing their Senators, and re- 
questing their Representatives, 'to make every possible 
exertion, to effect the passage of a law, for the Abolition 
of Slavery in the District of Columbia.' 

(11.) December 12, 1831, Hon. Mr. Adams, presented 
Abolition memorials in the House of Representatives, and 
they were referred to the Committee on the District, com- 
posed entirely of slaveholders. The Committee reported, 
that ' until the adjoining states act on the subject, it 
would be [not unconstitutional, but] unwise and im- 
politic, if not unjust, for Congress to interfere, &c.' 

(12.) Mr. Van Buren admits the power of Congress to 
abolish slavery in the District, in a letter last year, to gen- 
tlemen in North Carolina. 

(13.) Pickney's celebrated Report, is compelled to 
concede the power to Congress. 

(14.) The Legislature of Vermont at its late session, 
passed a resolution, declaring that Congress has this power. 

(15.) Mr. May's resolutions, recently introduced into 
the Virginia Legislature, proposing certain amendments 
to the United States' Constitution, impliedly admit the 
same. 

But, Sir, it cannot be necessary to multiply historical 
proofs, though I have more at hand. I have been thus 
wearisome in my details, that I might show : 1. That the 
great mass at the North, have conceded this right, as 
well as very many at the South. And now, if Congress 
does not possess this power, how came it to be almost uni- 
versally conceded, from .the adoption of the Constitution 
onward nearly forty years? 2. That Abolitionists are not 
the only " agitators' of this question :— but, that State 
Legislatures, Congress, and even the people of the District 
hemselves, have been the leaders in this work. 



10 REMARKS OF 

THE CONSTITUTIONAL ARGUMENT. 

Second. I now proceed to offer proof of a different 
character. In Article 1, Section 8, of the United States 
Constitution, we find this clause. 'The Congress shall 
have power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases 
whatsoever, over such district, (not exceeding ten miles 
square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the ac- 
ceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government 
of the United States.' In pursuance of this clause, Mary- 
land and Virginia ceded the District of Columbia to the 
United States, and Congress accepted the same. 

Virginia and Maryland claim no power over the Dis- 
trict. Nor does any other state. The District has no 
legislature, and therefore it cannot abolish slavery there. 

THE LEGISLATIVE POWER OP CONGRESS OVER THE DIS- 
TRICT. 

Congress, then, is the only law making power for the 
District. The question then is, has it power to make a 
law abolishing slavery there? All its power over the Dis- 
trict, is derived from the Constitution ; and it gives it ' ex- 
clasive legislation in all cases whatsoever.' Is the case of 
slavery excepted 1 No. Then of course it is included 
in the grant of power. 

TIM' ONLY LIMIT TO ITS POli ill. 

But, it may be asked, is there no limit to the legislative 
power of Congress over the district? Certainly. There 
are some things, which no legislature in this country, can 
rightfully do. Such as, to pass < r post facto laws, laws 
sanctioning robbery, rapt , murder, and all violations of 
fundamental morality. So Congress, in regard to the Dis- 
trict, stands on the same ground with the law-making 



HENRY B. STANTON. 11 

power every where. It is limited by such and similar re- 
straints, and no further. Congress, then, having exclusive 
legislation in all cases whatsoever, has power to do any 
thing, in that District, which the law-making power is 
competent to do anywhere. Therefore, if any state has 
power to abolish slavery within its own territory, Congress 
has this power in the District. It may be objected that 
states may have this power ; — the people having granted it 
to them in their Constitutions. 

Answer. 1. True, all power resides in the people ; — 
and they may confer more or less on their rulers. In some 
states, their Constitutions curtail the legislative power, so 
that it is not competent to abolish slavery. This power, 
however, resides in the people, and they can so alter their 
Constitutions, as to give this power to their legislatures. In 
some states, they have done so : — proving, conclusively 
that when not restricted, the law-making power is, intrin- 
sically competent to the abolition of slavery. But, 2. The 
authority of Congress over the District, is not curtailed, 
but extends to the outmost limit of power, with which a 
legislature may be invested by the people : — to wit, 'all 

CASES WHATSOVER.' 

THE ONLY QUESTION AT ISSUE. 

The whole gist of the question then is this : — Is a legis- 
lature, or the law-making power over a given territory, 
competent to abolish slavery there, when that legislature 
possesses all the power which any legislature, under' any 
circumstances, is competent to possess ? 

I answer, 1. Legislative power has done it in numer- 
ous instances, in this, and other countries. I confine my- 
self to this. In Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, 
New York and New Jersey, slavery has been abolished by 



]-2 REMARKS OF 

their respective legislatures. Now, are all these abolitions 
null and void, because the law-making power is not com- 
petent to abolish slavery? 

2. The same authority has abolished slavery in its 
parts. And if we select these various parts from the dif- 
ferent states where the mutilations took place, and com- 
bine them, we shall discover that they constitute the es- 
sentials of slavery : — and thus, legislative authority having 
done it in all its parts, has done it in the aggregate, or 
whole. The ancient legislation of Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut, establish this truth.* 

SLAVERY THE CREATURE OF LAW. 

3. That the law-making power can abolish slavery, 
is plain from the fact that it has created slavery. Slavery- 
is the creature of law. Legislatures have enacted laws, 
and these laws have made the system legal. Let them 
repeal these laws, and it is no longer legal ; — in other 
words, is abolished. Law creates slavery. Can it not an- 
nihilate its own workmanship ? 

fOMMON LAW VS. SLAVERY. 

4. On the principles of the Common law, slavery is 
everywhere null and void. Common law operates as an 
abolition act, whenever it comes in contact with slavery. 
By it, every slave is free.t Hence, statute law sustains 
slavery; — and does it by violating common law. Repeal 
thes* statutes, and the great fundamental principles, on 
which the common law is based, would batter down the 
walls of this American Bastile ! 

* See Stroud pp. 23, 24. 

t See Haagrave's profound argument in the celebrated case of Sommer- 
sett, 2<) How. State Trials, 61. See 2 Salkeld'a Rep. 666, Smith ^s. 
Brown & Cooper; and same vy. Could. C.J. Holt declares, that 'as 
soon as a negro comes into England, be becomes free. One cannot be a 
slave in England.' ■ Man may be the owner, and therefore cannot be the 
subject of property !' 



HENRY B. STANTON. 13 

SLAVERY SOMETIMES THE CREATURE OP USAGE. 

It has been objected to this view of the subject, that in 
some states, slavery is not sustained by statutes, but merely 
by general usage, and custom : hence, it is not competent 
for the Legislature to annihilate it, because it did not cre- 
ate it. 

To this I answer, 1. Then, in such states, the legisla- 
tures should not make stealing and robbery illegal, for 
they are customary and usual ! 2. Is not the grand ob- 
ject of government, to secure to its subjects their natural 
rights? And have legislatures no power to prevent one 
half of their subjects, from making common plunder of 
the rights and immunities of the other half, merely be- 
cause this high-handed robbery, is customary and usual? 

3. But, this objection does not cast its shadow even 
upon the border ground of the question before us. Con- 
gress can abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, be- 
cause it exists there now by act of Congress. 

HOW CONGRESS GOT POSSESSION OF THE DISTRICT. THE 
CESSION. 

Let us recur to history. On the 23d December, 1788, 
Maryland passed an act, to cede to Congress, ' any dis- 
trict in the state, not exceeding ten miles square, which 
the Congress may fix upon, and accept for the seat of gov- 
ernment of the United States.' 

On the 3d of December, 1789, Virginia did the same, 
in these words, ' And the same is hereby forever ceded to 
the Congress and Government of the United States, in full 
and absolute right, and exclusive jurisdiction, as well 
of soil as of persons residing or to reside thereon, pursuant 
to the tenor and effect of the eighth section of the first 
article of the Constitution.' Slavery then existed, in both 
these states. 

2 



14 REMARKS OF 

CONGRESS CREATED SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT. 

On the 16th July, 1790, Congress accepted the cession, 
and provided, that the existing laws of those states (slave 
code and all,) should remain in force ' until Congress 
shall otherwise provide,' Thus Congress adopted the 
slave codes of Maryland and Virginia, as its own, for the 
crovernment of the District, and under these laws, the 
slaves of that District are held. "When Congress accept- 
ed the domain, and provided by law for the government 
of the district, then the laws of Maryland and Virginia 
over the ten miles square, ceased ; and, had not Congress 
re-enacted their slave laws, every slave in the District 
would have been free ! But Congress continued, yea, vir- 
tually, to all intents and purposes, re-established slavery 
there, and thus made us A SLAVEHOLDIXG NA- 
TION. Now, Mr. Chairman, the power to repeal this act 
of Congress by which the slave code was re-established, 
must exist somewht re. Where ? Not in the Legislature of 
Maryland : nor in the Legislature of Virginia : nor in the 
District: but, IT RESIDES IN CONGRESS. 

THE DRAWBACKS. THE PROVISOS. 

But, it is asserted, that in all this reasoning, we forget 
the terms of the cession ; — the drawbacks and the provisos ; 
— and now, say gentlemen of the Pinckney school, if 
Congress should abolish slavery in the District, it would 
violate the conditions on which Maryland and Virginia 
ceded it to the United States ! 

Answer. Look to the acts of cession. (1) In that of 
Maryland, there was no drawback or proviso. Hence, 
the objector must admit, that Congress has power to abol- 
ish slavery over that portion of the District! (2) The 
act of Virginia had a proviso touching the 'soil,' viz : — 
1 That nothing herein contained shall be construed to vest 



HENRY B. STANTON. 15 

in the United States any right of property in the soil, or to 
affect the rights of individuals therein, otherwise than the 
same shall or may be transferred by such individuals to 
the United States.' What, Sir, can be plainer, than that 
this specification about the rights of individuals in the 
soil, was to define more accurately that clause of the act 
of cession — ' Full and absolute right ? ' And, instead 
of the proviso concerning the soil, operating to restrain the 
action of Congress upon slavery and other subjects, it 
even more fully authorizes and confirms its action upon 
points where there is no limitation, than did the act itself! 
For, a specific exception, as to a single particular, only 
proclaims all other particulars exempt from the exception. 

A QUESTION. 

(3) If Maryland and Virginia did really design to 
limit the power of Congress over slavery in the District, 
why not add half a dozen words to these acts, and the 
thing is done? Why not, at least, throw out some hint, 
in that direction ? But, not a word ! 

(4) That clause of the Constitution which defines 
the power of Congress over the District, was referred to 
both by Maryland and Virginia, in their acts of cession, 
and those acts declared to be in pursuance of it. Now, 
the question we have to settle is, not whether these acts of 
cession in all their minutia, harmonized ox conflicted with 
that clause of the Constitution ; — but, what arc the potc- 
ers which that clause gives to Congress ? Those acts 
could neither give nor take away power from Congress. 
The Constitution either gives to Congress the power to 
abolish slavery in the District, or it withholds it ; — and 
that question is to be determined by the terms of the Con- 
stitution, and not, I humbly apprehend, by the legislation 
of Maryland and Virginia, And the fact, that Congress 



16 



REMARKS OF 



accepted the cession, proves, that in their opinion, the 
terms of the acts, contained no limitation of the power of 
' exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever.' 

UNJUST TO MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA. THEIR SUPPOSI- 
TIONS. 

It has been gravely urged, that if Maryland and Vir- 
ginia had supposed, that the Constitution gave Congress 
power to abolish slavery in the District, they never would 
have ceded it to the United States ; hence for Congress to 
do so, would be unjust to those States. 

Answer. 1. They did cede it ; — Congress did accept 
it ; — and then the power of these States ceased, and the 
power of Congress commenced. The only question is, 
What is the Constitutional power of Congress over the 
District, and not what were the suppositions of Maryland 
and Virginia? They may have had divers notions about 
the subject. But, I am yet to learn, that their notions 
either alter, or abrogate, the clause in question ; — or, that 
these States, are the authorized interpreters of the Con- 
stitution of this Republic. 

2. These States had given in their sanction to the Con- 
stitution, before the cession. They knew such a clause 
existed ; — and that if they ceded territory to the United 
States, under that clause, Congress would possess all the 
power over the territory after the cession, which they pos- 
sessed before. How then could they have supposed, that 
Congress had no power to abolish slavery in the District ? 
Sir, it is the love of slavery, which gives color to this idea. 

the compact.! a violation of the public faith! 

But, the. compact: — ay, Sir, the compact. We are 
told, the South would never have ratified the Constitution, 
if they had supposed it gave^ Congress this power j — and 



HENRY B. STANTON. 17 

hence, to exercise the power, would be a violation of the 
public faith. And it is asserted, that there was a general 
understanding to that effect, both at the North and the 
South. Sir, on this part of the subject, it requires all 
one's self possession to keep cool. I assert that the North 
never would have ratified that Constitution, if it" had not 
fully understood, that, by its terms, Congress did possess 
this power. So far was she from supposing, at the time of 
adopting the Constitution, that Congress had not this pow- 
er, she most religiously believed, that that instrument in- 
flicted a death blow upon slavery generally, and that the 
whole system would soon die. By its provisions, the for- 
eign slave trade was to cease, after 1S08. The prevailing 
opinion in Europe and in America at the time the Consti- 
tution was ratified was, that if this was destroyed, slavery 
itself must die. Judge Wilson, a member of the Conven- 
tion which formed the Constitution, pronounced the Arti- 
cle granting to Congress the power to stop this trade, ' one 
of the loveliest of its features, diffusing beauty over its 
whole aspect. He considered this power, equivalent to 
authority bestowed on Congress, to exterminate slavery. 1 

Massachusetts' suppositions. 
And, Sir, what were Massachusetts' 'suppositions' 
when she ratified this Constitution ? In the debate upon 
the instrument, in her Convention, Maj. Gen. Heath, of 
the Revolutionary Army, said : ' Two questions naturally 
arose in his mind. If we ratify this Constitution, shall we 
do any thing by that act, to hold men in slavery ? Shall 
we become partakers in other men's sins ? He thought 
not. Congress bad gone as far as it could. Slavery was 
confined to the States noio existing. It could not be ex- 
tended. By their ordinance, Congress had declared that 
2* 



18 REMARKS GF 

the new States should be republican States, and have no 
slavery.' This, Sir, is Revolutionary testimony. 

In the same Convention, Judge Dawes said, ' We are 
either to consider the blacks of the South as property, or 
freemen. Our own state laws, and our own Constitution, 
would lead us to regard these blacks as freemen, and so 
indeed would our ideas of natural justice.' Judge D. then 
referred to the article of the Constitution concerning the 
foreign slave trade, in terms of high eulogium. Said he, 
' We may say, that although slavery is not smitten with an 
apoplexy, yet it has received a mortal wound, and will die 
of consumption.' 

Truly, Sir, may not Massachusetts now exclaim, ' Oir 
Fathers! where are they?' 

Judge Dana, and Hon. John Adams, members of the 
Convention, rejoieed over that provision of the Constitu- 
tution which limited the slave trade, — ' odious and abhor- 
ent,' as they termed it. 

Mr. Backus denounced slavery. He trusted it would 
die, as his friend Judge Dawes had said, of consumption. 
4 The gospel,' said he, ' has placed all men on a level. 
" Ye are bought with a price ; be ye not the servants of 
men." ' 

Mr. Neal, and Gen. Thompson opposed the clause 
which put off the preventing of the slave trade, till 1S0S. 
Said Mr. N., ' I protest against any thing which shall 
favor the making merchandize of men.' Gen. T., in the 
course of a vehement speech, exclaimed, ' Mr. President, 
shall it be said, that after we have established our own 
independence and freedom, we make slaves of others? 
Washington! what a name he has! how has he immor- 
talized himself! But, Sir, he still continues to hold those 
in slavery, who have as good a right to freedom as him- 
self! '* 

* Elliott's Debates. 



HENRY B. STANTON. 19 

Sir, these were the doctrines of this state in the olden 
time. This her understanding of the compact. Upon 
whom have the mantles of our fathers fallen? 

WHAT WAS THE COMPACT 1 

Were there time, I would detail a long catalogue of 
facts, showing, that if there was any compact between 
the North and the South, besides the written compact, it 
was not a pno-slavery, but an ANTI-slavery compact. 
True to the pledge, the North returned from the Con- 
vention, and commenced the work of abolition. Numer- 
ous abolition societies were formed in Pennsylvania, Con- 
necticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, and 
even in Maryland and Virginia. And numerous address- 
es and sermons denouncing slavery, were put forth by 
the Pinckneys, the Jays, the Franklins, the Rushs, the 
Edwards, the Hopkins, and the Stiles of that day. Pat- 
rick Henry and Thomas Jefferson were not silent. And, 
by the great mass of the country, it was hoped, believed, 
and understood, that long, long ere this, the last vestige 
of slavery was to have rotted in a dishonored grave. 
Then, Sir, I go for the Compact! 

CONGRESS CANNOT IMPAIR THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 

It is further objected to abolition in the District, that 
Congress cannot justly impair the right of private prop- 
erty ; and that slaves, being property, their emancipa- 
tion, by law, would be unjust to the owner. 

To this it may be replied, that Cogress does not only 
impair the right of private property, but it annihilates it, 
ao long as its own laws withhold from the slave his pri- 
vate property j— and such property too ;— not merely his 
property in his earnings, but in himself! 

Reference is frequently made to the 7th Article of the 



20 REMARKS OF 

Amendments of the U. S. Constitution, which says, 'nor 
shall private property be taken for public use without just 
compensation,' as proving the injustice of abolition by- 
Congress. But this clause manifestly refers to the taking 
of individual property for governmental uses. Nothing 
like this is done in the abolition of slavery. 

CONGRESS CAN ESTABLISH JUSTICE. 

In the Preamble to the United States Constitution, one 
of the reasons assigned for its formation is, ' to estab- 
lish justice.' The emancipation of the slave, is not to 
wrest from any rightful owner his private property, but is 
to establish justice between the slave and his master. It 
is giving to the slave what is 'just and equal,' — his own 
body : — himself. It is saying that the slave's body and 
mind are his : — and that he has a right to than. When 
Congress abolishes slavery, it establishes justice between 
two men, — giving to the slave his own, and taking from 
the master what never, in justice, belonged to him. To 
give the slave personal ownership, is, however, far from 
full justice to him. That would demand of the master 
full compensation — not merely saying to him, ' rob the 
slave no longer, but pay him for past robberies.' And, 
indeed, has Congress no right to do this ] What ! a gov- 
ernment no power to do justice between its subjects? No 
power to keep one portion from robbing another ? Such 
a government is a mockery ! a nullity ! 

PRIVATE TROrERTY IS SUBJECT TO LEGISLATION. 

But, in the abolition of slavery, Congress would do 
nothing more in regard to private property, than is done in 
every legislature in the nation. Laws are made every 
where, regulating transactions between persons .-adjusting 
the relative claims of different classes ; employers and em- 



HENRY B. STANTON. 21 

ployed ; guardians and wards ; masters and apprentices ; 
the exercise of professions ; and the prosecution of trades. 
All such laws (and certainly they are no curiosity !) affect 
the rights and property of individuals ; and they are de- 
signed so to affect them as ' to establish justice' And, 
Sir, the repeal of the old law of entailments, and the 
enacting of the statute of limitations : — the regulation by 
law of the alienation of property, its transmission by de- 
scent, and by will, the saying who shall and who shall 
not be heirs, and how it shall be divided among them : — 
all these statutary provisions, most seriously affect the 
right of private property. And yet, who ever doubted the 
power of legislation to do such acts 1 And, Sir, Slavery 
has been abolished in New York, and other states by 
statute ! This has never been considered as any violation 
of private property. 

CONGRESS HAS LURED THE OWNERS TO INVEST PROPERTY 
IN SLAVES. 

A very plausible objection to this doctrine has been 
urged, which I will briefly notice, and then leave the ques- 
tion, as to the power of Congress to do this work. It is said, 
that the national legislature, has lured the slaveholders into 
the investment of property in slaves ; has said to them, by 
its laws, ' go on and purchase, and we will protect you,' 
therefore, it would be great injustice in the same legisla- 
ture, to destroy property thus invested. 

Answer, 1. Slavery is rank injustice to the slave : — a 
cruel wrong. Has Congress no right to correct its own 
wrong ? 

2. The government and the slaveholder, should be re- 
garded as common wrong doers ; — shall I say, common 
robbers ? Either one, or both, may repent, without doing 

INJUSTICE. 



22 REMARKS OF 



MAN CANNOT BE PROPERTY ! 



3. The National legislature has lured the slaveholder 
to invest property in MEN ? Then, these holders must 
run the risk of such investment! Property in men ! Talk 
of property in fixed stars, but not in immortal souls ! 

Man's superior right to himself, over the claims of 
another, is self-evident. It stands pre-eminent among the 
essentials of his moral nature. His right to liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness, is self-evident and inalienable. 
Our Declaration of Independence utters it, and human con- 
sciousness, from its inner temple, responds Amen ! Con- 
gress has lured the slaveholders to invest money in human 
souls! And, the poor deluded masters, they will sink their 
money it the victims of their rapacity are permitted to re- 
gain possession of their own souls! Impious whining ! 
Sacrilegious fraud ! It overlooks entirely the rights and 
the interests of the slave. Its sympathies all cluster 
around the pocket of the robber, rather than the heart ot 
the robbed. 

But, it is ridiculous, as well as impious. Speculators, 
who invest their riches in human flesh, must look out that 
those riches don't take to themselves heels, and run away [ 
Suppose your legislature should charter a stock company., 
which should issue scrip, payable by a tax on the sun- 
shine which fell on Nantucket. Suppose gentlemen of 
property and standing, should invest large Minis in this 
scrip, and should be flushed with the expectation of mak- 
ing large profits in this sunshine speculation. But lo .1 
when they sent their collectors to that bustling island, the 
people should stoutly refuse to pay the tax ; — insisting, 
that a Beneficent Providence, sent his sunshine with an 
equally liberal hand upon all, whether evil or good. And, 
then, these speculators in sunshine — scrip, should 



HENRY E. STANTON. 23 

whine around the doors of your legislature, that they had 
been lured into this investment, that it was hard, they had 
sunk money, and so forth. Would not common sense re 
ply to them, that ' those who invest property in sunshine, 
must expect small gains?' Sir, it is much more clearly a 
self-evident proposition, that a man has an inalienable 
right to his own body, than that he has an inalienable right 
to the sunshine which falls upon that body. 

The Committee then adjourned till the next day, at 3 
P. M. 

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, FEB. 24. 

The Committee met in the Representatives' Hall, pur- 
suant to adjournment. In continuation of his argument, 
Mr. Stanton addressed them in substance, as follows : 

I am aware, Mr. Chairman, that it is customary on oc- 
casions like this, to commence by descanting upon the 
importance of the subject under discussion. This is com- 
mon place. I dislike to stoop to it on the present occa- 
sion, lest my reasons for so doing should be regarded as 
trivial. Yet, I will run the hazard. In courts of justice, 
the advocate often trembles, as he rises to address the jury, 
when the pecuniary interests of his client are at stake, 
then what should be my feelings, when I rise to address 
you, not in behalf of the pecuniary interests of one client, 
but in behalf of the liberties and the lives, the interests, 
temporal and eternal, of thousands? Ay more; — the 
questions here discussed, are not confined in their bear- 
ings, to the slaves in the District of Columbia ; nor in this 
nation. The cause of freedom throughout the world ; the 
honor of God's law, will be deeply affected by your delib- 
erations. The interests here involved, are co-extensive 
with human hopes and human happiness; wide as the 
universe, lasting as eternity, high as Heaven. Then, Sir, 



24 REMARKS OF 

the slave, the master, this Commonwealth, the nation, the 
world, Jehovah himself, demand that we deliberate pa- 
tiently, cautiously, impartially. And, gentlemen, your 
constituents will pardon you for so doing. No subject is 
more discussed by them, than that now before you ; and 
the intensity of their feelings, not less than their immedi- 
ate concernment, requires this deliberation at your hands. 
The Committees of the honorable body, whom you repre- 
sent, spend many weeks in the investigation of Banks, 
Rail-Roads, and kindred subjects, and shall you not de- 
vote a few brief hours to a matter, whose importance as 
immeasurably overshadows all pecuniary and fiscal inter- 
ests, as liberty is more worth than money ? 

And I ask the indulgent attention of the Committee, 
because I believe, that as you shall decide, so the Legis- 
lature will act. Your number is unusually large ; you just- 
ly have the confidence of the House, and to you they look 
to mature this subject for their action. Upon you, there- 
fore, rests the responsibility of a decision. Hear me then 
for my cause, and bear with me, because I plead not only 
for the suffering, but the dumb. 

THE QUESTION STATED. 

The question which will now occupy our attention, is 
the second one proposed yesterday, viz : — Ought Con- 
gress immediately to abolish slavery, and the slave trade, 
in the District of Columbia ? The power of Congress to 
do this, was discussed yesterday. Our present business 
is with the expediency of exercising that power. 

SLAVERY A POLITICAL AND MORAL WRONG. 

1. I contend that Congress should immediately abolish 
slavery and the slave trade in that District, because slav- 
ery is a system at war with natural justice and moral equi- 



HENRY B. STANTON. 25 

ty : — is a political and a moral wrong : — a sin against 
man and God. Hence, no political or moral considera- 
tions can justify its continuance for a moment. ' Jus- 
tice,' says Gov. McDuffie, ' is the highest expediency — 
and I am sure South Carolina is the last state in the 
Union, that would knowingly violate the sacred canon of 
political morality.' Shall Massachusetts be behind South 
Carolina in political morality ? Before I entered the 
House this afternoon, a friend remarked to me, that it 
would be of no use to urge the odious character of slav- 
ery to satisfy this Committee of the expediency of its im- 
mediate abolition. Sir, I will not believe it. Is it true, 
that the detestable and impious nature of slavery, is not, 
to the head and heart of a Massachusetts legislator, the 
highest reason for its immediate and total annihilation ? 
Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within the legislative 
halls of this Commonwealth ! God forbid. 

SLAVERY MAKES MEN THINGS. 

What then is slavery ? It is the worst of all oppres- 
sions. It robs men of their distinctive characteris- 
tics as rational and immortal beings, and makes them 
things. In the language of the slaveholding code, (and 
slavery is the creature of law,) ' Slaves are deemed, sold, 
taken, reputed and adjudged to be chattels personal, in 
the hands of their owners and possessors, their adminis- 
trators and assigns, to all intents, constructions and pur- 
poses whatsoever.' Thus, the master has as absolute own- 
ership over his slave, as over any other property. The 
statute un-creates the slave as a man, and re-creates him 
a chattel. 

IT DESTROYS ALL MAN'S RIGHTS. HOW ? 

It annihilates all his rights by annihilating his man- 
3 



26 REMARKS OF 

hood, by virtue of which alone, he is an owner of rights. 
His Creator endowed him with sacred rights, pre-eminent 
among which was the right of personal ownership. Hav- 
ing robbed him of this pre-eminent right, the law is con- 
sistent, when it says, ' a slave can do nothing, possess 
nothing, acquire nothing ; ' for, in the language of the 
same code, he ' is not to be ranked among sentient, ra- 
tional beings, but among things, as an article of property.' 
To rob men of property is manifestly unjust, and your 
•Legislature would not hesitate a moment to declare it ex- 
pedient to stop such robbery instantly ; — but, to rob men 
of themselves : — ah, that is indeed a * delicate question ! ' 
{Slavery thrusts its robber-arm too far to excite the abhor- 
rence of political morality. If it stopped at the pocket, 
the civilized world would cry out against it ; — but, when 
it goes through the pocket to the man himself, and by 
force takes him, body and soul, and converts him into 
merchandize, and herds him with four-footed beasts and 
creeping things, then its abolition is a question of doubt- 
ful expediency! To steal your purse, J\Jr. Chairman, 
would be palpable injustice; — but to take yourself, and 
thus annihilate the sun in the solar system of your rights, 
around which all your other rights revolve, and upon 
which they depend, and without which they arc not, is 
but a venial offence ; and to rebuke it, much more to 
prevent it, is of questionable expediency ! 

Sir, slavery is the acme of injustice and impiety. God 
gave to man his faculties to be employed in the promo- 
tion of his own happiness. But slavery regards the slave 
not as a being possessing rights and susceptibilities of 
happiness, but as a mere means of happiness to his mas- 
ter. The object of the system is not to promote the good 
of the slave, but to use him to promote the good of anoth- 
er. He is a mere tool in the hands of his owner. He is 



HENRY B. STANTON. 27 

not permitted to use his powers of body, of mind, of soul, 
to advance his own happiness, or to advance the happiness 
of others, or to obey his God. Yea, the profit and the 
pleasure of the owner are the end for which the slave 
is permitted to exist ! He only lives that he may be pro- 
fitable to his master ! 

MEN ANNIHILATED. 

In the District of Columbia, there are seven thousand 
Americans, bearing Jehovah's image, and touched with 
His immortal fire ; who are, by statutory enactments, abso- 
lutely annihilated as beings possessing rights and suscep- 
tibilities of happiness, and are permitted to live only as 
appendages to the existence of others ; as mere articles 
of convenience to be used for the pleasure of others ; and, 
so far as it is in the power of human legislation to do it, 
are oivebieu uf t.»^j iJ c lil J " utq ] " > ^ cooiui, intellectual, 
political and moral, and are crowded cut of God's crea- 
tion into the chaos of an anomalous existence, where 
they are regarded and treated neither as men, nor vet as 
things ; — neither as rational beings, nor yet as brutes ; — 
but as SLAVES. 

SOMEBODY RESPONSIBLE. WEO ? 

For this daring, — this impious crusade against Jeho- 
vah and His works, somebody is responsible. Who is it 1 
I answer, THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED 
STATES. This system is its handy work. It lives, 
and moves and has its being in that District, by the ex- 
press permission of Congress. Then let that body, let 
those who elect that body, and those who have influence 
with that body, take the responsibility of continuing this 
system of 'complicated villany ; ' but let them answer it to 
that Being, who has said, ' Vengeance is mine, I will 
repay.' 



28 REMARKS OF 

THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY THE SOURCE OF CRUELTY. 

The right of absolute ownership over the slave as a 
chattel, is the fountain hear], from which all the cruel- 
ties of the system flow. The innumerable inflictions, 
exactions and privations, such as stripes, toil, denial of 
wages, with all the other positive evils of the system, 
flow spontaneously from this fountain head. 

SLAVES NO PROTECTION OF LAW. 

Having robbed the slave of himself, and thus made him 
a thing, Congress is consistent in denying to him all 
protection of law as a man. His labor is coerced from 
him, by laws passed by Congress : — No bargain is made, 
no wages given. His provender and covering are at the 
will of his owner. His domestic and social rights, are 
as entirely disregarded, in the eye of the law, as if 
T)-itv had »^»^» ii-^titufco j i.Lv_ mniomiug idcuiuus uf Hus- 
band and wife, parent and child, brother nnd sister. 
THERE IS NOT THE SHADOW OF LEGAL PRO- 
TECTION FOR THE FAMILY STATE AMONG 
THE SLAVES OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUM- 
BIA. What think you of this, Sir, as a husband and a 
father 1 Neither is there any real protection in law, for 
the limbs and the lives of the slaves of that District. 
The shadow of legal protection for life and limb, is indeed 
extended to them, but the substance is not there. 

No slave can be a party before a judicial tribunal, in 
the capital of this Republic, in any species of action 
against any person, no matter how atrocious may have 
been the injury received. He is not known to the law as 
a person; — much less, a person having civil rights. Says 
Stroud, in his admirable ' Sketch of the laws relating to 
slavery,' u it is an inflexible and universal rule of slave 
law, that the testimony of a colored person, whether bond 



H. E. STANTON. 29 

or free, cannot be received against a white person ! !" 
Slavery thus puts the life of its victims into the power of 
the master. The master may murder by system, with 
complete legal impunity, if he perpetrates his deeds only 
in the presence of colored persons! What think you as a 
Legislator, sir, of such a system in the Capital of a land of 
light and law, — which boasts of equal rights, of trials by 
jury, of courts of justice, and whose Constitution says, 
" no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, 
without due process of law ?" Is it expedient to abolish 
it? And this system, in that District, is hereditary and 
perpetual. 

CIVIL GOVERNMENT A CURSE. 

Thus Congress, in regard to one-fifth of those over 
whom it exercises exclusive legislation, has perverted civil 
law from a blessing into a curse; and, to its victims, has 
made our free institutions an engine of the most odious 
tyranny. It is the constitutional guardian of the rights, 
and the sworn protector of the interests, of all the people 
in that District. It has offered the rights of seven thou- 
sand citizens, a bleeding sacrifice on the altar of cupidity, 
passion and power. IT IS RECREANT TO ITS HIGH 
TRUSTS. 

THE SLAVE TRADE IN THE DISTRICT. 

But, sir, the slave trade in that District demands our at- 
tention. How humiliating, that the Capital of our nation 
should be one of the foulest slave markets in the world. 

MINER'S RESOLUTION. 

In January, 1829, the House of Representatives of the 
United States, on motion of the Hon. Mr. Miner, of Pa. 
adopted a resolution, by a vote of 114 to 66, a part of 
whose preamble I will read. 
3* 



30 REMARKS OF 

" Slave- dealers, gaining confidence from impunity, have made the seal of 
the federal government their bead quarters for carrying on the domestic 
slave trade. 

" The public prisons have been extensively used, (perverted from tic 
purposes lor which they wen- erected,) lor carrying on the domestic slave 
trade. 

ers of the federal government have bee i and derive 

.ms from carryii mestic slave trade. 

•• Private and secret prisons exist in the district lor carrying on the 
traffic in human b< 

e trade is not confined to those who are slaves for life ; but persons 
having a limited time to Berve, are bought by the slave-dealers, and sent 
where redress is 

" Others are kidnapped and hurried away before they can be rescued. 

uish of despair, exhibited in the Dis- 
trict, mark the cruelty of this traffic. 

sices of maiming and si e, eieci ted or att« mpted, have 1 ten 
ezhih traffic within the District. 

human beings i xposed at public vendue are exhibited here, 
permitted by the laws of the gei i ral government. 

•• \ grand jury of the district has presented the slave trade as a 
grievance. 

" A writer in a public print in the District has set forth. ' that to these 
who have never seen a spectacle of the kind ( exhibited by the slave trade) 
no description can give an adequate idea of its horrors.' " 

THE PUBLIC PRISON \ A SLAVE DEPOT. 

In a speech in support of bis resolution, Mr. Miner 
makes the following statement in regard to the jail in 
Washington. 

■• !'. paperc furnisl ed me by the keeper, it app« ars that in the last five 
years, more than tour hundred and hfty persoi s had been confined in the 
public pris < it] — a prison under the control of < ongress, and 

n -mated by its laws — for sale in the process of the slave trade. Such, 
said Mr. M., is no1 the intention for which the prison was erected. Penn- 
sylvania, so far as she is concerned, and her means are appropriaU d to re- 
pair and keep up the prison, 1 am confident in saying, does not and never 
Ins intended that it should be used for this purpose." 

Nearly three hundred others were, during the same 

period, taken up and imprisoned as runaways in the same 

jail. 

CASH PAID FOR AMERICANS ! 

The following advertisement is cut from a recent Wash- 
ington paper. 

•■ CASH FOR 100 NEGROES." 
" Including both sexes, from 12 to 2j years of aire. Persona having 

likely servants to dispose of. will hud it to their interest to give us a call, 



H. B. STANTGN". 31 

as we Will give higher prices in cash than any other purchaserwho is nMr ; 
or may hereafter come into this market." 

" FRAJNKLIIN & ARMFIELD." 

Franklin &, Armfield, are extensive dealers in human 
flesh, at the Capital. They have a regular line of " Pack- 
ets/' running from Alexandria to New Orleans, whose 
chief business is the transportation of slaves. I present 
their case only as a specimen of the trade in the District. 
Ay, sir, there is a keen competition in this brokerage in 
human blood. Franklin &, Armfield are but one of the 
many firms, who drive this trade at the seat of the Federal 
Government. See the audacity with which they offer 
" higher prices" " than any other purchaser in this market t" 

" PIRACY." WHAT IS IT ? 

Where do we witness this? On the coast of Africa? 
No! For there, if caught, Franklin &l Armfield would 
be hung as pirates. But, in the Capital of " the freest na- 
tion on earth." And who are these "negroes?" Are 
they of the Caffres in Africa ? No! For ihen, Frank- 
lin &l Armfield would die as pirates. But, they are Amer- 
ican born citizens! — and, if it would add to their claims 
for mercy, 1 might say, many of them are as white as your 
distinguished Senator in Congress! 

Mr. Miner, in the course of his remarks, read a pre- 
sentment made by a grand jury at Alexandria, in 18C2. 

" January Term, 1802. 

" We, the grand jury for the body of the county of Alexandria, in the 
District of Columbia, present as a grievance the practice of persons com- 
ing from distant parts of the United States into this District, for the pur- 
pose of purchasing slaves, where they exhibit io our view a scene of 
wretchedness and human degradation, disgiaceful to our characters as cit- 
izens of a free government. 

" Those dealers in the persons of our fellow men, collect within this 
District, from various parts, numbers of those victims of slavery, and 
lodge them in some place of confinement until they have completed their 
numbers. They are then turned out into «ur streets, and exposed to view, 
loaded with chains, as though theyhad committed some heinous offeace 
against our laws. We consider iV a grievance, that citizens from distant 
parts of the United States, should be permitted to come within the Dis- 
trict, and pursue a traffic fraught with so much misery to a class of beings 



32 REMARKS OF 

entitled to our protection, by the laws of justice and humanity ; and that 
the interposition of civil authority cannot be had to prevent parents frcra 
being wrested from their offspring, and children fr< in their parents, with- 
out respect to the ties of nature. We consider those grievances demand- 
ing legislative redress ; especially the practice of making sale of black 
people, who are, by the will of their mash to be i'ree at the 

expiration of a termof years, who are sold and frequently taken to dis- 
tant parts, where they have not the power to avail themselves of that 
portion of liberty, which was designed for their enjoyment" 

True it is, that this presentment was made thirty-five 
years ago. But, Mr. Chairman, as the trade has increased 
in years, it has grown in turpitude and horror. It has 
now become too strong and too respectable lor the grand 
jurv of that District to dare to present it as a grievance. 
There are too many members of Congress who profit by it 
now, to justify such an interference! Under the torpedo 
power of. slavery, .nave holding grand juries are struck 
dumb. Shall the Legislatures of free States succumb? 
The Holy Alliance sneers at our tame subserviency. 



This traffic is not confined to the legal slave : — it 

clutches the rights ol the free. Says Mr. Miner, in the 

preamble to his resolution, 

•• Free persons of color coming into the District, an I arrest, 

imprisonment, and to be sold into slav< r\ for life, f< r jail l'< < s, if unable 
nee. misfortune, or frai i m." 

By a law of the District, authorised of course by Con- 
gress, all negroes found residing in the city of "Washing- 
ton, who shall not be able to establish their title to free- 
dom, an- committed to jail as absconding slaves/ Most 
wicked and unconstitutional law! It is the common law, 
even of Monarchies, that men are to be presumed inno- 
cent, ami consequently free, till they are proved guilty. 
But by this law, color is made a crime, which first robs 
citizens of their constitutional rights, and is then taken as 
evidence that they are slaves: — and to crown all, a large 
posse of constables and other officers, some of them in 



H. B. STANTON. 33 

the pay of the Government, are, by their oaths, obliged to 
execute these laws. The result is, that citizens, as free 
as your Committee, are often arrested, imprisoned, and 
then sold for their jail fees as slaves for life ! See the fol- 
lowing record of our baseness. A Washington paper has 
the following 

NOTICE. 

" Was committed to the prison of Washington Co. D. C, on the 19th 
day of May, 1834, as a run-away, a Kegro man who calls himself David 
Peck. He is 5 feet 8 inches high. Had on, when committed, a check 
shirt, linen pantaloons, and straw hat. he says he is free, and belongs to 
Baltimore. * * The owner or owners are hereby requested to ccme for- 
ward, prove him, and take him away, or [" or' what? said Mr. Stanton ; 
he will be set free? We should naturally ihink so ; remembering that he 
was an American citizen, in the Capital of li the freest Government on 
earth/ 7 But JNO ! Listen.] or he will be sold for his prison and other ex- 
penses, as the law directs. JAMES WILLIAMS, 

Keeper of the Prison of Washington County, District of Columbia. 
For ALEXANDER HUJNTER, M. D. C.' 7 

The above is but a specimen. Four other persons, at 
least, who said they were free, have been advertised in a 
similar way within the last year. I will not comment on 
such facts. It would be insulting to the patriotism and 
humanity of the Committee. 

Shall the voice of this ancient Commonwealth be dumb, 
when slavery plays such tragedies of cruelty on the thea- 
tre of our Capital ? If so, 

Then, by our Fathers' ashes, 
Has the spirit of the true hearted and the unshackled gone ! 

The time may yet come, perhaps has already past, when 
a legal voter of our own State, may visit Washington, on 
business before our National Legislature, — and from the 
color of his skin, be suspected of having been robbed of 
personal ownership, and on such suspicion be plunged into 
prison, and, in due time, be sold to pay " his prison and 
other expenses, as the law directs." Sir, let us talk no 
more of " State Rights," till we have acquired courage to 
protest against such unconstitutional aggressions. 



34 REMARKS OF 

LICENSE TO SELL MEN. 

In the City Laws, sanctioned by Congress, I find an 
" Act to provide a revenue for the Canal Fund," which 
lays an impost as follows, " For a License to trade or traffic 
in Slaves for profit, whether as Agent or otherwise, focr 
hundred dollars." Thus, what is piracy on the coast of 
Africa, is licensed in the City of Washington. Says Dr. 
Samuel Johnson, " the loudest yelps Jar liberty arc among 
the drivers of Slaves.'' Dr. Johnson was an eminent lex- 
icographer, and gave admirable definitions to terms. 

what no the petitioners ask? 
And now, Mr. Chairman, what do the petitioners ask 
you to request Congress to do? I answer ; — merely to re- 
peal these odious statutes immediately; and to enact others 
if necessary, in their stead. 

VfMEDIATE ABOLITION: WHAT IS IT? 

By immediate abolition, they do not intend that the 
Slaves of the District should be " turned loose :" — nor, 
that they should be as a sine qua nan to abolition, immedi- 
ately invested with ail political rights, such as the elective 
franchise. But, simply, that Congress should immediately 
restore to every Slave, the ownership of his own body, 
mind and soul. That they should no longer permit them 
to be " deemed, held, and sold, as chattels personal, to all 
intents, constructions and purposes whatsoever ;'' but 
Bhould give the slaves a fee simple in their own blood, 
. and brains. That they should no longer be re- 
garded as things without rights, but as men with rights. 
In a word, that the right of property, on the part of 
the master over the slave, should instantly cease. This 
: done, of course the slave should be legally protected 

in life and limb, — in his earnings, his family and social re- 
lations, and his conscience. We only ask, that the master 



H. B. STANTON. 35 

should stop taking from the slave those things which of 
right belong to him : — and that Congress should give equal 
and exact justice to all concerned. Sir, is this just? Is 
it expedient? 

V LEGAL PROTECTION ANNIHILATES SLAVERY. 

To give impartial legal protection in that District, to all 
its inhabitants, would annihilate slavery. And is not in- 
nocence entitled to the protection of law ? The people 
wait to hear your answer to this question 1 Slavery and 
the slave trade, could not survive the introduction, into 
that District, of this plain principle, viz. that innocence is 
entitled to the protection of law ; a principle so self- 
evidently just, so necessary to the existence of human so- 
ciety in its most degraded forms, that even semi-barbarians 
acknowiege and act upon it. Give the slave, then, equal 
legal protection with his master, and, at its first approach, 
slavery and the slave trade flee in panic, as does darkness 
before the full orbed sun. I stiil press the point; is it ex- 
pedient for all the inhabitants in our Capital, to have the 
protection of law ? or shall the rights of the weaker, be 
made the common plunder of the stronger ? 

ENFRANCHISEMENT. 

As to the immediate investment of the slaves with the 
elective franchise, and other mere conventional rights, we 
leave that to the wisdom of Congress. We only say, let 
there be no tests on account of color. Strike a dead level, 
and whose head soever reaches above it, let him enjoy 
the advantage, whatever may be his phrenological conform- 
ation. Let the quality of the brains, and the color of the 
heart, be the standard, rather than the color of the skin, 
and the texture of the hair. 



3G REMARKS OF 

PAUPERISM AND THROAT-CUTTING. 

I am asked, if the slaves would not become paupers, — 
or might not kill their masters? I answer; that same 
power which repealed the slave code, would make all ne- 
cessary provisions to prevent pauperism, and to secure the 
o-eneral welfare. The entire resources of the country would 
be at the disposal of Congress ; and, at any moment, it 
could bury the emancipated negroes of the District, under 
an avalanche of cannon balls. 

SLAVES BETTER OFF NOW THAN IF FREE. 

A member of your Committee, Mr. Chairman, has ask- 
ed me to answer the inquiry, whether the negroes of the 
District would be as well off when free, as they now are 
while slaves. 

Mark, sir, the kind of abolition for which I contend : 
to wit, the restoration to the slave of personal ownership, 
and the protection of law. Tli,en the inquiry resolves it- 
self into this, — whether the slaves would be as well off to 
be men, as God made them, as to be things, as He did not 
make them. In a word, whether it will conduce to the 
happiness of the world, to regard things and beiugs just 
as they are, or just as they are not. Men better off with- 
out compensation for their labor, than with 1 Then repeal 
your laws for the protection of private property, and the 
collection of debts. Men better off without legal protec- 
tion than with ? Then burn your statute books, abolish 
your judiciary, and raze your legislative halls to their foun- 
dation, and cry havoc, and let slip theft and robbery, as- 
sault and murder. Men happier without the ownership of 
their own minds than with? Happier that their wills 
should be under the absolute control of another, than that 
they should control them themselves ! Impossible : for it 



II. B. STANTON. 37 

is equivalent to saying, that a man is better pleased to do 
as another pleases, than to do as he himself pleases. 

SLAVES ARE NEVER WELL OFF. 

But, sir, with all respect for the honorable member, his 
inquiry assumes what I totally deny : — to wit, that a slave 
can be well off. He may be fed well, may be clothed 
well, not severely whipped, nor over worked. But this is 
regarding man as a mere animal. Horses may be fed well, 
covered well, not over whipped, nor worked: and may be 
held and used as chattels : and not contravene any law ot 
their nature. But man has a nobler nature. His spirit 
soars upward. He was created "a little lower than the 
angel3, and crowned with glory and honor, and set over 
the loor/cs of God's hands." Is it treating such a being 
well, to take him from this high station, in close fellow- 
ship with angels, and tarnish his glory and his honor, by 
transforming him into merchandize, and driving him or 
leading him like a brute, and selling him in the shambles 
to the highest bidder ? Said the immortal Henry, "give 
me liberty, or give me death !" and this nation re- 
sponds to the sentiment a loud Amen ! Is it good treat- 
ment to inflict on men that which is worse than murder? 
There is more in slavery than the deprivation of bread, 
and the infliction of stripes. Its plough-share of ruin goes 
over the soul. Hence, slavery is the mother of degra- 
dation. 

Said an emancipated slave to me in the city of Cincin- 
nati, Ohio, " I had rather be a free ?nan, and live under 
the cruel laws of Ohio, and beg my btead from door to 
door, and go down to the Ohio river to drink, than to be a 
slave in Virginia, where I could not own myself, and 
where I heard the cries of my poor perishing brethren." 
As you love freedom, listen to a slave ! Show me the man 
4 



38 REMARKS OF 

who now eats plain and scanty food, wears coarse clothing, 
and works hard and long, who would exchange such a life, 
for one of luxury, splendid dress, and fashionable ease, on 
the condition that he was to he the absolute and perpetual 
property of another, to all intents, constructions and pur- 
poses whatsoever. I would like to look that man in the 
face ! 

WHAT WE ASK OF CONGRESS ? 

Better off in slavery ? We ask Congress to give them 
impartial justice. This, Congress can do, and is bound to 
do. And this, I am sure, would be belter than abject 
slavery. 

I have no time to glance at facts. Read the entire his- 
tory of emancipation ; and this fact challenges contradic- 
tion, viz. that the condition of the emancipated negro, 
physically, pecuniarily, socially, intellectually, morally, ia 
decidedly superior to his condition while a slave. St. Do- 
mingo and the British West Indies, settle this beyond 
dispute. 

FREEDOM OUTLAWED AT THE CAPITAL. 

2. I assert that Congress ought immediately to abolish sla- 
very in the District of Columbia, because it is the Capital 
of this Republic ; is the seat of our National Legislature, 
and of the Supreme Court : the public offices, the public 
records, and the public archives are there; and [now, sir, 
for the inference,] the existence of slavery there, is totally 
incompatible with that freedom of locomotion, of speech, 
of the press, and of debate, which are necessary to trans- 
act the public business of the nation. It is needless to 
sav, that every citizen should be able in safety to visit the 
Capital ofthe Republic, whatever may be his opinions on any 
subject. But, while slavery exists there, this \s impossible. 



H. B. STANTON. 39 

Free colored citizens, I have already shown, are out- 
lawed in the District. If one of them should invent a 
useful improvement in mechanics, and should go to Wash- 
ington to obtain a patent, he might be seized, incarcerated 
on the suspicion that he was a slave, and finally he, and 
his model, both be sold at auction, to defray the expenses 
of suspecting kirn ! 

DR. CRANDALLS' CASE. 

Those of a paler hue fare but little better. In the Sum- 
mer of 1835, Dr. Reuben Crandall, a citizen of New 
York, visited the District for the purpose of pursuing his 
profession. Being suspected of holding sentiments in ac- 
cordance with the Bill of Rights of this Commonwealth, 
he found refuge from the vengeance of a howling mob, 
within the walls of the public prison. I personally know 
this gentleman. He possesses a temper as mild, and a 
heart as benevolent, as ever filled the human breast. He 
would not touch, injuriously, the hair of a slaveholder's 
head, to emancipate every slave in the land. After lan- 
guishing eight months in prison, to the great injury of his 
health, he was put on trial for his life, as an incendiary. 
He was acquitted ; — there not being the shadow of a rea- 
sonable suspicion upon his conduct. He then fled the 
District. 

R. G. WILLIAMS* CASE. 

During his trial, the testimony of Ransom G. Williams, 
of New York, was vitally important. He was summoned 
as a witness: but, being the friend of Crandall, and hold- 
ing similar opinions, he was warned by Members of Con- 
gress, that his life would be endangered, if he appeared 
there. 



40 REMARKS OF" 

And why could not Williams visit the Capital of " the 
freest nation on earth V Was he suspected of being the 
secret emissary of the Holy Alliance? No. Hut, in a 
paper published by him in New York, he had uttered the 
sentiment, " God command*, and all nature cries out, that 
man should not be held as property.'' For this, he was in- 
dicted in Alabama, and the Governor of that State, de- 
manded him of the Governor of New York, as a fugitive 
from justice. For uttering this self-evident truth, he was 
forbidden, on peril of his life, to press with his foot, the 
soil of the District. 

DOCTRINES PROSCRIBED. A DELUSION. 

Sir, it is a delusion to think that " abolitionists" only are 
excluded from the Capital of your Nation. It is doc- 
trines which are outlawed there. And such doctrines ! 
You, sir, could not visit the seat of our Federal Govern- 
ment in safety, if you dared to utter the noble sentiments 
in your Bill of Rights. The eloquent Channing has been 
denounced on the floor of Congress, this winter, as the 
vilest of incendiaries, and I would not insure his life there 
a day. The genius of slavery will not tolerate the senti- 
ment, that " man should not be he!d as property." It pre- 
sides at the Capital. Its altars are there. Its bloody de- 
cree has gone forth, " WORSHIP OR DIE ; ' ! Hundreds 
of thousands in this Nation, are outlawed at its own Capi- 
tal, for holding and uttering the self-evident principles, on 
which its Constitution is founded, and in defence of which, 
Bunker's mount smoked with blood. 

freedom of speech STRUCK DUMB IN CONOR BOS. 

In our National Legislature, freedom of .-peech is struck 
dumb, by the omnipotence of slavery; and its member* 



H. B. 5TANT0N. 41 

are overawed in debate, and cannot give utterance to their 
thoughts, without hazarding their lives. The Genius of 
Despotism presides over the public councils. 

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

Witness the threat to assassinate JO JIN QUINCY 
ADAMS, last winter, because he dared to vindicate the 
right of petition. Slavery is indeed an inexorable Moloch, 
when it will not spate the venerable sage of Quincy. 
Read the following audacious threat, by Waddy Thomp- 
son, of South Carolina, uttered on the floor of the 
House, during the present month. Mr. Adams had pre- 
sented petitions, relating to slavery, and had propounded 
a question to the Speaker, about a certain petition. Con- 
cerning him, Mr. Thompson says, 

" Does that gentleman know that there are laws in all the slave State*, 
and here, For the punishment of those who excite insurrection ? 1 can 
tell him that there are such things as grand juries $ and if, sir, the juries of 
this District have, as I doubt not they have, proper intelligence and spirit. 
he may yet be made amenable to another tribunal, and we may yet see an 
incendiary brought to condign punishment." 

The French Convention, during the reign of Terror, 
when the streets of Paris ran with blood, legislated at the 
point of the assassin's steel. Said a member, as he arose 
to address the President, "the eyes of assassins flash upon 
us from those windows, and the gleam of their daggers is 
seen within these wails." At this period, France was in 
name a Republic, in reaiity a Despotism. The American 
Congress is now the theatre, on which is re-acted the 
tragic scenes of the French Convention. I will read an ex- 
tract of a private letter from Hon. John Quincy Adams, to 
a friend in this State, dated Washington, 26th January, 
1837. 

Says Mr. Adams, " My effort here has been, to sustain 
4he right of petition in the citizen, and the freedom of 
speech in this House, and the freedom of the press, and of 
4* 



•M 



REMARKS OF 



thought, out of it. My freedom of speech in the House 
has been, and is, suppressed. The vindication of the 
rights of the people, must ultimately rfs! upon themselves. :t 
And, sir, to the vindication they will generously and 

promptly come ; and their rulers must yield to the pressure 
of the public tide, or be overwhelmed. 

THE PLOT THICKENS. 

The w.ir has hut just begun. Of these trials, sir, we have 
jet scarcely touched the border ground. Abolitionists may 
yet be Members of Congress. Am.], v.n unparalleled change 
of the public sentiment in their favor, shows that they sown 
will be. For THE PEOPLE will be abolitionists ; and that 
they will elect men, who will faithfully represent them in 
Congress, I cannot doubt. Such Members will be among 
the proscribed; and will be Lynched, as was Dresser, or 
be arrested as was Crandall, for opinion's sake. And is 
Washington the sp)t for the Supreme Legi. latine of a free 
people? Shall our Representatives deliberate with threats 
of indictment in their ears, and gags in their mouths, and 
cords around their necks, and the assassin's steel at their 
backs? Slavery must fall therefor to this complexion it 
will come at last 

THE SUPREME COURT. JUDGE LYNCH. 

Judges of the Supreme Court, in expounding the rights 
of man, may yet be arraigned as incendiaries : or, per- 
haps, in their turn, stand as criminals at the bar of Judge 
Lynch's Court. The Charge of His Honor Judge Story, 
to the Grand Jury of Portsmouth, N H., in 1820, in which 
he denounced slavery and die slave trade, has been indict- 
ed in this modern Court for the Correction of Errors. 
Lawyers, suspected of aversion toihe "Patriarchal Insti 
tution," in their attendance upon the Supreme Court, nmy 
be put to death, without benefit of clergy. 



K. B. STANTOM. 43 

DA MEL WEBSTER. 

Daniel Webster, with his Plymouth Speech in his pocket, 
*' may yet see an incendiary brought to condign punish- 
ment." You, yourself, sir, if you shall dare to report on 
our petitions, in accordance with the cherished principles 
and policy of Massachusetts will be outlawed at our Capi- 
ta!. How humiliating are such disclosures to an Ameri- 
can heart. I again press the point ; is this city of charters 
and chains, of gags and grand juries, of constitutions and 
kidnappers, the spot where the national business should Le 
transacted, and the national honor dwell? 

THE REMEDY. 

The remedy for these evils is obvious. ABOLISH 
SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT. Remove the cause 
and the effect ceases. 

FREEDOM AND SLAVERY ALWAYS AT WAR. 

A wise Providence has so ordered, that perfect freedom 
and absolute slavery cannot, for a long time, co-exist on the 
same soil. The mighty throes, which now toss the body 
politic of this nation, are the smugglings of these opposite 
principles for the mastery. Freedom and Slavery ! Sir, they 
are eternal antagonisms. They have no affinities, and will 
not be at peace with each other. Rather let us attempt to 
mingle light and shade, heat and cold, sickness and health, 
right and wrong, heaven and hell, than hope that freedom 
of speech, of debate, and the press, can dwell in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, or m this nation, while slavery is 
tolerated. 

Slavery is darkness, and free discussion is light. They 
cannot commingle. Freedom of speech and of the press, 
are now pouring a blaze of light from every part of the 
-civilized world, upon the darkness of slavery. They are 



44 REMARKS OF 

disclosing to view its haggard deformity ; and smiting with 
fear and trembling the consciences of its abettors. Sir, its 
throne would stand more securely on the heaving cra- 
ter of a volcano, than on the waves of free discussion. 
To perpetuate slavery, the conscience of the master must 
be buried. Free discussion sounds the blast of resurrec- 
tion over its grave, and with the authority of God, bids its 
" come forth I" Freedom of debate, on the floor of Con- 
gress, and a free press in the District, would win over the 
conscientious slave holder, and thus, the ranks being 
broken, an invincible array of truth, would march into the 
very centre of the enemy's camp. Every converted slave- 
holder is a deserter, carrying strength and invaluable 
knowledge, over to the cause of freedom. His defection 
destroys the union of the opposing forces, and dispels the 
charm of invincibility, which hovers around their standard. 
Says Gen. Duff Green, (an acute observer,) " We have 
most to fear from the effect of organized action upon the con- 
sciences and fears of the slave holders themselves; from 
the insinuation of these dangerous heresies [the equality 
of man, and the inalienability of human rights,] into our 
schools, our pulpits, arad our domestic circles." Precious 
confession! And so, lest the truth should reach the con- 
sciences of slave holders, at the Capital, and rouse their 
fears, they have offered up freedom of thought, of speech, 
and of the press, in Congress and out of Congress, on the 
altar of slavery. 

OBJECT OF THE CESSION. 

Says Mr. Pinckney in his celebrated Report, the Dis- 
trict was ceded to the United States, " that there might be 
a seal for the Federal Government, where the power of 
self protection would be ample and complete." Is the 
self protection of Congress ample and complete, while iu 



H. B. STANTON. 45 

Members are compelled to say, "my freedom of speech in 
the House has been, and is, suppressed?" So too, of all 
other departments of the Federal Government. Then, let 
slavery there be abolished. And can it be that Congress 
has no right so to do, and thus render its own self protec- 
tion, and that of the other branches of the Government, 
ample and complete, when that, according to Mr. Pinck- 
ney, was the very object of the cession ? 

SLAVERY ENDANGERS THE PUBLIC PROPERTY. 

3. Slavery should be immediately abolished at the eeat of 
the Federal Government, because it is dangerous to the 
security of the national property, — the public buildings, 
stores and archives , — and also, to the lives of the Mem- 
bers of Congress, to the liberties of the nation, and the 
perpetuity of our free institutions. 

SLAVES ENEMIES OF THE COUNTRY. 

The slaves of that District have every natural induce- 
ment to be the deadly foes of this government. Holy writ 
informs us, that "oppression maketh a man mad;" — and 
the history of revolutions, written in blood, confirms its 
truth. On the annual return of our " nation's jubilee,' 
the entire American people, in solemn assembly, declare 
that " all men are created equal," and pointing to the 
graves of their fathers, swear by their ashes, that " resist- 
ance 10 tyrants is obedience to God." Our forts and our 
navies, echo it back in articulate thunder. We land the 
valor of the men of the Revolution, I ecause for a trivial 
tax on tea and paper, unjustly imposed, they bared their 
bosoms to the shafts of battle, choosing rather to die in- 
stantly as freemen, than to live as slaves. Out, is a tax on 
tea to be compared in atrocity with a tax on heart and 
sinew, body and soul ? — an impost, which clutches the 



46 REMARKS OF 

man himself, and drowns his entire being in the vortex of 
its rapacity ! If you will not hear vie, listen to Thomas 
Jefferson. 

" What an incomprehensible machine is rmn ! who can endure toil, fam- 
ine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication of his cwn liberty, 
and the next moment be deaf to all those motives, whose power supported 
him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bond ige, one hour of 
which is fraught willi more misery than ages of that which he rose in re- 
bellion to oppose.'* 

And who whelms the slaves of our Capital in this tide 
of 'misery?' THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. Its 
laws forge the chains, and rivet the manacles. And can 
the slave love such institutions, and such a country ? Lis- 
ten again to Jefferson. 

' With what execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permit- 
ting one half of the citizens to trample on the rights of the other, trans- 
forms those into despots, and these into enemies ; destroys the morals of 
one part, and the amorpatrits of the other/ t 

Ay, sir, slavery destroys the " amor patriot' of its vic- 
tims. Who will rebuke the slave of the District, if he reason 
thus, " What is this Capitol to me ? There the scourges are 
twisted that lacerate my back. There the laws are framed 
which make me a brute. What are these records and 
documents to me ? They are the sources, whence my 
oppressor derives his arbitrary power. What to me are 
these arsenals and navies? Not for the protection of my 
wife and children, my property and life ; — but to intimi- 
date me to submission. I'll plot (not treason, for I have 
no country) but rapine and Barnes, and thus glut my ven- 
geance." And, to the members of Congress he might say; 
" 4 On me you inflict a bondage, one hour of which is fraught 
with more misery than ages of that, which you rose in 
rebellion to oppose."! ' Resistance to tyrants is obedience 
to God. '|| ' Give me liberty or give me death. '§ ' I'll pcr- 

* Jefferson's Correspondence. 
t Jefferson's Notes. 

rMjn. 
j War cry of the Re volution. 
<[ Patrick Henry. 



H. B. STANTON. 47 

ish in the last ditch in defence of my rights.'* Then to the 
onslaught !" 

WHO ARE THE INCENDIARIES 1 

Remember, sir, that I, in common with all abolitionists, 
counsel the slave t0 peace and to submission. We deny 
his right to fight even for liberty, and nothing would grieve 
us more, than to see a drop of the slaveholders' blood shed. 
We are not the incendiaries. But your revolutionary mon- 
uments, your fourth of July orations, your patriotic odes, 
your military parades ; they are incentives to insurrection. 
Southern members of Congress say, they dread insurrec- 
tion because of the agitation of this question. If sincere, 
they certainly have need to dread it in the District of Co- 
lumbia. 

In my premises under this head, I asserted that slavery 
in the District, was dangerous to the liberties of the nation, 
and the perpetuity of our free institutions. I will illustrate 
this in two ways. 

SLAVES DANGEROUS IN TIME OF WAR. 

(1.) In case of a war with a foreign power, slavery in the 
District, and the state of things consequent upon its exist- 
ence there, would open a cloor through which an invading 
foe, might enter, and take possession of the Capital. Let 
him enter that ten miles square, and write upon his banner, 
" freedom and protection to the slave who will join our 
standard," and they might go over to the invaders in a 
body. At best, they would be a dangerous population, 

THE WAR OF 1812. 

Let facts admonish us. In the war of 1812, Washing- 
ton was invaded, the Capitol burnt, the public archive* 

•McDuffie. 



4S REMARKS OF 

sacked, and the President compelled to flee for his life. 
Why ? Answer. The free whites in the District were too 
busy in watching their slaves, and preparing to protect 
their property and their lives from an expected revolt, to 
lend any aid in repelling the invaders. This humiliating 
and admonitory truth, was acknowledged by Southern 
presses, and has been admitted to a gentleman of my 
acquaintance, by inhabitants of the District. What a sub- 
lime spectacle, to see the citizens of the Capital of " the 
freest government on earth," in time of a foreign invasion, 
so busy in taking care of their slaves, that they could not 
protect the Capitol and the Chief Magistrate of the nation, 
from fire and sword ! Sir, it ever will he so, where slavery 
is tolerated. During the Southampton insurrection, fifty 
negroes rode in triumph through that county, and the 
chivalry of the Ancient Dominion, fled in panic before 
them. Each planter was watching his own slaves. And 
the United States troops finally quelled the insurrection. 
By the Constitution, Congress has power to "provide for 
the common defence and general welfare." Asa citizen, 
I protest against Congress keeping a magazine of powder 
in that District, liable at any moment to explode, and deso- 
late the country. 

THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD. 

(2.) The continuance of slavery there and elsewhere, en- 
dangers the perpetuity of our Republic, because it provokes 
the judgments of God. Certainly Mr. Chairman, thiscon- 
Bideration will not be lost upon the Legislators of a pro- 
fessedly Christian state. Domestic tyranny is the fatal shoal 
npon which many a proud state of antiquity, has laid its 
bones. The fragments of Greece and Rome, magnificent 
in their ruins, should warn us from following in their fatal 
track. The American nation is intoxicated with the delu- 



H. B. STANTON. 49 

sion, that her liberties are impregnable. That there is, in 
the structure of her government, some perennial conserva- 
tive, by which she will rise elastic and invigorated from 
assaults without and commotions within. An inflated patri- 
otism utters the delusive words, Esto perpetual An indomit- 
able ambition, echoes them back, Esto perpetua ! An ineffa- 
ble self complacency, which has dethroned reason, mistakes 
the echo for the voice of God. And, like the victim of 
consumption, hope is strongest in the hour of dissolution ! 
Fatal charm ! True, the voice of God is heard : but it is 
in startling denunciation. Look over our country, and see 
it tossing on the wild waves of civil commotion. Look 
into our national counsels, and see them rent by civil 
feuds. The humble Christian, who reads his Bible, and 
communes with his God, knows the cause. For it, he 
looks beyond Tariffs, and Banks, and the rivalry of parties. 
He sees that this nation has forgotten God. That she has 
grown rich upon His mercies, and then, in her pride, has 
trodden the Indian and the Negro, whose condition enti- 
tled them to her generous protection, under the hoof of 
her ambition. During her mad career of folly and crime, 
God's eye has been upon her, and His ear open to the cry 
of the perishing. The alternative of Jefferson is now pre- 
sented to her. Let her choose. Says the sage of Monti- 
cello, speaking of the slaves, 

" When the measure of their tears shall be full,' — when their groans 
shall have involved heaven itself in darkness, — doubtless a God of justice 
will awaken to their distress, and, by diffusing light and liberality among 
their oppressors, or at length, by his exterminating thunder, mani- 
fest his attention to the things of this world, and that they are not left to 
the guidance of a blind fatality.' 7 * 

FATE OF TYRE AND EGYPT. 

But a greater than Jefferson has left us the record of 
nations overthrown by the "exterminating thunder" of 

■"Jefferson's Correspondence. 



50 REMARKS OF 

Jehovah, Tor the sin of oppression. Where now is Tyre— 
the city of the sea— which " traded the persons of men, 
and vessels of brass in her market ?" — Desolate,— destroy* 

e d ! the plough-share of ruin, driven to the beam amidst 

her foundations, by the hand of God ! What was the fate 
of slaveholding Egypt ?— God visited her in judgment. 
Her first born perished at a blow. Death was in all the 
dwellings of her princes. But, the Hebrews sprinkled the 
Dlood of a slaughtered beast upon their door-posts, and the 
Angel of the Pestilence passed over them, and they escap- 
ed. Let, then, the free states of this Union, if they would 
escape the coming storm of Divine displeasure, sprinkle 
the blood of slavery on the door-posts of our Capitol. So 
shall the Avenger pass over them and spare them, when 
He comes with His " exterminating thunder !" 

Listen again to the author of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 

" And can the liberties of the nation be thought secure, when we have 
refused the only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that 
these liberties are the gift of God ? That they are not to be violated but 
with his wrath ? Indeed, I tremble for my country, when 1 recollect that 
God is just ; that his justice cannot sleep forever ; that a revolution in the 
wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events ; and 
thatit mav become probable by a supernatural interference. The Almighty 
has no attribute which can take sides with us in such a contest.''* 

WU1 not political men listen to prophecies like these ? It 
is not necessary that heaven should empty the reservoir of 
its wrath upon this nation, as it did upon Egypt. The ma- 
terials of our ruin are ample within us, and around us. 
The Indian, the Negro, the Mexican, the Ilaytian, all have 
a. fearful account to adjust with us. And, if our internal 
commotions increase in ferocity for a few coming years in 
the ratio of the past, we are a people dissevered, with no 
bond of union, and our fall will add another to the list of 
nations, ruined by their abuse of the mercies, and their 
contempt of the precepts of Jehovah. 
* Jefferson's iS'otes. 



H. B. STANTON. 51 

SLAVERY DESTROYS NATIONAL REPUTATION. 

4. It is expedient that slavery at the Capital should be 
abolished, because its toleration brings into contempt our 
nation's boasted love of equal rights, justly exposes us to 
the charge of hypocrisy, paralyzes the power of our free 
principles, and cripples our moral efforts for the overthrow 
of oppression throughout the world. v 

The citizens of this nation have deep responsibilities, as 
republicans, as Christians, as citizens of the world. Our 
character and reputation, are moral capital, loaned us by 
God, to be invested for the political and moral renovation 
of the human race. The Reformers of South America 
and Europe, have anxiously looked to us as the pioneer 
nation in the cause of human liberty, and hoped that our 
experiment would demonstrate even to tyrants, that man is 
capable of self government. But, by cherishing in the 
heart of the republic such a system of cool blooded op- 
pression, as the sun has rarely seen, we have rolled back 
the tide of reform in other nations, and cut the sinews of 
struggling humanity. 

ENGLISH REFORMERS AND CONSERVATIVES". 

The enemies of free principles in England, point to our 
slavery, to our Lynch code, and our mc;b conservation, to 
prove, that Republics are the worst of Despotisms. Sir 
Robert Peel, the leader of the Conservatives in Great Brit- 
ain, laughs us to scorn at the public dinners of the aristoc- 
racy, and cheered on by our hypocrisy, rides rough shod 
over the plebeian reformers. That slavery at our capital 
contributes largely to this aristocratic glee, permit me, in 
proof, sir, to read from a work, entitled, " Men and Man- 
ners in America," by Col. Hamilton, an English gentle- 
man of high standing, who spent some time in our country. 



52 REMARKS OF 

It is their substantia] truth, which gives the sharp edge to 
his observations. 

•• Washington, the seat of Government of a free people, is disgraced by 
slavery. The waiters in the hotels, the servants in private families, and 
manv of the lower class of artisans, are slaves. While the orators in 
Congress are rounding periods about liberty in one part of the city, pro- 
claiming, alto voce, that all men are equal, and that ' resistance to "tyrants 
is obedience to God,' the auctioneer is exposing human flesh to sale in an- 
oiher! I remember rf gifted gentleman of the Representatives, who, in 
speaking of the Senate, pronounced it to be ' the most enlightened 5 the 
most august, and the most imposing body in the world !' In regard to the 
extent of imposition, I shall not speaks but it so happened that the day 
was one of rain, and the effect of the eulogium was a good deal injured by 
recollecting that, an hour or two before, the members of this enlightened 
and august body, were driven to the Capitol by slave coachmen, who were 
at that very moment waiting to convey them back, when the rights of 
man had been sufficiently disserted on for the day." 

How cutting the irony ! It is good for us to know, that 
the world regards us as hypocrites. It may lead to self- 
examination. He proceeds. 

"That slavery should exist in the District of Columbia, that even the 
foot-print of a slave should be suffered to contaminate the soil peculiarly 
consecrated to Freedom, that the very shrine of the goddess should be 
polluted by the presence of chains and fetters, is perhaps the most extra- 
ordinary ar.d monstrous anomaly to which human inconsistency — a prolific 
mother — has given birth." 

Sir, these disclosures are nutrition to the despots of Eu- 
rope. After devouring them, they go to their chain-forging 
with renewed vigor. But to our extract. 

••' The man who would study the contradictions of individual and national 
character, and learn by how wide an interval, profession may be divided 
from performance, should come to Washington. He will there read a 
now page in the volume of human nature. He will hear the words of 
freedom, and he will see the practice of slavery. Men who Bell their fel- 
low-creatures, will discourse to him of indefeasible rights • • * * he will 
be taught the affinity between the democrat and the tyrant ; he will look 
for charters, and find manacles; expect liberality, and be met by bigotry 
and prejudice."* 

And to all this, Monarchs respond, " So mote it be !" — 
And can we reproach them, when the bondage we nourish, 
has by them been exterminated? 

Shall every flap of England's flnrr 

Proclaim that all around are free, 
From 'fartherat End' to each blue crag 

That beetles o'er the Western Sea ? 

'Men and Manners in America, pp. 279, 280. 



H. B. STANTON. OO 

And shall we scoff at Europe's kings, 
When Freedom's fire is dim with us, 

And round our country's altar clings 
The damning shade of Slavery's curse 1 

SNEERS OF A DESPOT. 

James Brooks, a candidate for Congress, in Maine, at 
the last election, and now Editor of the New York Ex- 
press, affirmed in one of his letters from Europe, during 
his recent travels there, that, in the year 1S35, when the 
iron code of Judge Lynch ruled our Republic, it was ru- 
mored, that the Emperor of Austria gave to some state 
criminals their option, to be sentenced to the galleys for 
life, or be banished to this country ! Sir, are we sunk so 
low, that the contempt of tyrants cannot reach us? 

Go — let us ask of Constantino 

To loose his grasp on Poland's throat — 
And beg the lord of Mahmoud's line 

To spare the struggling Suliote. 
Will not the scorching answer come 

From turbaned Turk, and fiery Russ — 
' Go, loose your fettered slaves at home, 

Then turn and ask the like of us !' , 

Sir, I affirm, without fear of successful contradiction, 
that the present anti-slavery struggle in this country, is 
doing more, under God, to redeem our national character 
from these foul blots, and to cheer onward the work of re- 
form in Europe, thaa all our republican toasts and demo- 
cratic orations, our patriotic songs and civic processions, 
the speeches of our Senators, and the messages of our 
Chief Magistrates. 

TAUNT OF THE SOUTH. 

But upon us, as northern men, this point bears with pe- 
culiar pressure. The free States have the power to abolish 
slavery in the District. So long as we refuse to do it, with 
what face can we declare to our southern fellow citizens, 
that we are opposed to slavery 1 Go there, sir, and reprove 
the slave holder, and urge upon him the duty of emanci- 
5* 



54 REMARKS OF 

pation. He will meet you with the scorching rebuke, 
,; Go back to your free States, and abolish your own sla- 
very in the District of Columbia. Look to your own State 
Legislature at home, which dares not declare, that Con- 
gress ought to abolish the slavery in which your own Com- 
monwealth is implicated. You opposed to slavery ? Then 
pluck the beam from your own eye." Sir, would not 
your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth ? Would 
vou tell him, you were a member of the very Legislature, 
which denied the prayer of these memorialists? Ay, 
more! Should he know from your lips, that you were the 
chairman of the very committee, who reported against the 
prayer 1 Would fire burn this disclosure out of you 1 Ex- 
cuse these personalities, sir, for I plead for those who can- 
not plead for themselves; — for those who have, by the 
highest legislative body in the Union, been denied the poor 
privilege of petitioning for mercy. 

The north must abolish slavery in the District, or her 
moral power for the removal of slavery in the nation, is at 
an end. 

CONGRESS DEFENDS SLAVERY ON PRINCIPLE. 

5>. This object should be accomplished without delay, so 
that Congress may speedily and effectually undo the 
wretched work of the last session. The report of the 
Hon. Mr. Pinckney, adopted last May, attempts to prove, 
that Congress ought not to interfere, in any way, with 
slavery in the District, because, it would be unwise, im- 
politic, a violation of the public faith, (tantamount to a 
violation of the Constitution,) and dangerous to the Union; 
and, in addition to this, it contains a thorough defence 

OF SLAVERY ON 1"RI NCll'LE, AS A WISE AND BENEVOLENT 

institution ! These doctrines were sanctioned by a 
body, a large majority of whose members are from the free 



H. B. STANTON. 55 

States, and by it, were sent out to the world, as the voice 
of America. As a citizen of the free States, as an Amer- 
ican, as a man, I repudiate, I abjure, I abhor them. They 
"are not the sentiments of the free States, but a foul libel 
upon our freedom and our religion. The memorialists 
demand, that the Representatives from the free States, 
wipe out this blot ; and atone for the outrage, by destroy- 
ing the system, thus made the occasion of libelling both 
man and God. Where is the voice of this Commonwealth, 
when such doctrines are promulgated to the world, by the 
suffrages of New England ? Is the padlock on our lips ? 

SLAVERY DESTROYS THE RIGHT OF PETITION. 

6. Slavery in the District should be destroyed, because it is 
made the occasion of denying the sacred right of petition. 
The gentleman, who preceded me, has dwelt at large on 
this point. But, I cannot pass it over in silence. The 
right of petition is the last, which a people, determined to 
be free, should ever surrender, or permit to be abridged. 
It is the barrier against the aggressions of the governors 
upon the governed; — the shield, by which the minority 
ward off the assaults of the majority. This government 
was established to protect the minority. The unabridged 
right of petition is the corner stone of the edifice. The 
resolution passed by the House of Representatives on the 
1 8th ultimo, is a fearful abridgment of this right. 

THE DANGER. TYRANNY OF PRECEOENT. 

It is the precedent established by that resolution, which 
I most dread. Congress has decided, as to what questions, 
and in what manner, the people shall petition. We are a 
precedent-loving, a precedent-fearing nation. Our Courts 
of Justice, and our Legislative Halls, are the slaves of pre- 
cedent. They worship their own folly, merely because it 



5G REMARKS OF 

is their own folly. The people bow down to the same in- 
exorable deity. Precedent, — precedent, is the order of 
the day ; the divinity of the hour. Congress has, for cer- 
tain causes denied to the people the right of petition, in 
regard to slavery. The precedent is established. To- 
morrow, for certain causes, she denies it in regard to the 
currency. The precedent is strengthened. The next 
day, for the same cause, she refuses to receive petition? 
concerning the Tariff. The precedent, gathering cour- 
age, demands fresh victims. Petitions concerning Com- 
merce, Intemperance, Indian treaties, Secret societies 
and Mobs, are next offered on the altar. The Idol 
becomes more rapacious. He demands, that all petitions 
should be thrown back into the faces of the petitioners. 
The people, tamed into subserviency by yielding, without 
resistance, to reiterated aggressions, meekly bow the neck, 
and kiss the yoke. Mr. Chairman, the present crisis thun- 
ders in our cars, Obsta principiis ! Oppose beginnings ! 
To launch forth in this stream of precedent, is ruin. The 
cataract is just below us. Let us stand on terra firma. 
Slight aggressions by Buonaparte, unresisted by the 
French people, encouraged to mightier strides in the road 
to arbitrary power. Step by step, he reached the summit 
of despotism, with willing slaves shouting their approving 
hosannahs at his heels. Obsta principiis ! 

At the last session, the House of Representatires took 
the first step. It cautiously surveyed the whole ground, 
before it set down its foot. The present session, the pre- 
cedent having been established, it took the second step with 
alarming promptitude. Let us prevent the third. How? 
By abolishing slavery in the District, now made the pre- 
text for trifling with, trampling upon, the inestimable right 
of petition.* 

•It will he recollected, that the preamble to Mr. Miner's resolution de- 
clares, 'that ofliccis of the Federal Uoverniueiit* ** derive emolument 



HENRY B. STANTON. 57 

OBJECTIONS. 

Mr. Chairman ; I will now proceed to answer some ob- 
jections to the sentiments which I have thought it my duty 
to advance. 

INJURE THE SLAVE STATES. 

It is uttered in Mr. Pinckney's report, and from other 
high sources, that the abolition of slavery at the seat of 
the Federal Government, would injuriously affect the 
slaveholding States, especially Maryland and Virginia; 
and therefore, it would be unjust, and a violation of the 
public faith. In reply, it may be necessary to call the at- 
tention of the Committee, to the admitted facts, first, that 
Congress has the Constitutional power to abolish slavery 
in the District ; and, secondly, that abolition there, in it- 
self considered, and when regarded as an isolated act, 
would be productive of great good. Our Bill of Rights, 
the Bible, and the history of emancipation, settle this. 
But ' it will injuriously affect other states.' Are those 
other State* so circumstanced,, that doing an admitted 
good in the District, will injure them ? Then there must 
be ' something rotten in the State of Denmark.' Inju- 
riously affect them on account of their slavery? Let 
them follow the example of Congress, and then they will 
have no slavery to be injured. 

EXCITE INSURRECTION. 

Mr. Pinckney argues at great length to prove, that aboli- 
tion in the District would excite the slaves of the sur- 

from carrying on the domestic slave trade.' At the lasf session of Congress, 
Hon. Gabriel Moore, Senator from Alabama, opposed the reception of pe- 
titions asking for the abolition of the slave trade in the District, because 
hesaid_, they reflected upon him and his colleague, who had both purchased 
slaves in the District! The Hon. Senator does not stand alone- It is not 
unusual for members of Congress to purchase slaves at the Capital as agents 
or their constituents. Shall the right of Petition be sacrificed, to spare 
he delicate feelings of Congressional negro-traders 1 



58 REMARKS OF 

rounding States to insurrection. Let those States then 
abolish slavery, and there will be no slaves to rise. 

The doctrine of Mr. Pinckney, when sifted, seems to be 
this. Restoring to men in the District of Columbia their 
inalienable rights, will make men in Virginia and Mary- 
land uneasy, because their inalienable rights are kept from 
them ; therefore, men in the District, should not have their 
inalienable rights! That is ; if I do right to my neigh- 
bor, it will give trouble to another man, who does wrong 
by his neighbor ; therefore, I should not do right by my 
neighbor ! Or thus ; if we should give men in the Dis- 
trict, their bodies and souls, it would endanger ty- 
rants ! therefore, it is right, that ice should rob them of 
their bodies and souls, and so ourselves be tyrants ! It 
may be true, that the enjoyment of liberty by all men at 
the capital of ' the freest government on earth,' will en- 
danger tyranny ; but, I am yet to learn, that that fact will 
justify the enslaving of a considerable portion of its citi- 
zens. 

A DOCTRINE CARRIED OUT. 

What is the principle here involved ? This; — The en- 
joyment of freedom by certain men endangers slavery, 
therefore, these men must be enslaved. Let the principle 
be applied. The people of color among us, enjoy free- 
dom. This, we are told by the South, endangers slavery. 
Shall we, therefore, reduce them to slavery ? Or, if so 
reduced by others, shall we leave them to perish, lest their 
deliverance should endanger oppressors ? The laboring 
population of New England enjoy an enviable free- 
dom. Patriarch McDuffie, and his disciples, (and they are 
numerous) inform us, that this endangers the perpetuity of 
their ' peculiar institutions/ and therefore, urge, that our 
farmers and mechanics be reduced to vassalage. 



HENttY B. STAtfTON. &9 

Sir, we have long known that our system of compensa- 
ted free labor, was a bitter rebuke to the unpaid, coerced 
labor of the South. The elastic enterprize of Massachu- 
setts ; its busy machinery ; its productive ingenuity ; its 
blooming vallies; — the rugged hills of old Worcester, cul- 
tivated to their very tops by the indomitable energy of its 
husbandmen ; — its smiling villages, with your own beauti- 
ful Templeton ;* — its flourishing cities ; — the prosperity 
and happiness of its entire population, do indeed contrast 
strongly with the drivelling policy of the South, as evinc- 
ed by its dishevelled, mildewed, blasted agriculture; — its 
sluggish trade ;— its dilapidated towns ; — with one half its 
inhabitants sunken in degradation, and the other, devour- 
ed with the lust of power and enervated with luxury; — 
where the very bondman himself, might laugh in his chains, 
to see how slavery has stricken the land with ugliness. 
Stung to the quick, in their insane chagrin, the advocates 
of that policy are calling to us : 

' Ho — fishermen of Marblehead! — 

Ho — Lynn cordwainers, leave your leather, 
And wear the yoke in kindness made. 

And clank your needful chains together ! 
Let Lowell mills their thousands yield, 

Down let the rough Berkshire-man hasten, 
Down from the workshop and the field, 

And thank us for each chain we fasten.' 

And will the Committee be consistent, and carry out 
the doctrine of the objection ; — or, while they shall go for 
the deliverance of the working-man in the District, will 
they respond to the proud Southron : — 

( No — George M'Duffie ! — keep thy words 

For the mail plunderers of thy city, 
Whose robber right is in their swords; 

For recreant priest and Lynch-Committee. 

Slaves in the rugged Yankee land ! 

We tell thee, Carolinian, never ! 
Our rocky hills and iron strand, 

Are free, and shall be free forever. 

* The Chairman of the Committee resides in Templeton. 



60 REMARKS OF 

The surf shall wear that strand away, 

Our granite hill* in dust shall moulder, 
Ere Slavery's hateful yoke shall lay 

Unbroken, on a Yankee's shoulder ! 

Sir : Every session of your legislature in this hall, 
strikes a blow at tyranny. Its influence reaches the petty 
despotisms of the Sduth, and the Holy Alliances of Eu- 
rope. It is crumbling the foundations of their power. 
Shall you, therefore, surrender your high trust, as the rep- 
resentatives of freemen ? Shall you cease to proclaim the 
holy doctrines of your Bill of Rights, because they grate 
on the ear of Tyranny. 

ABOLITION WILL PREVENT INSURRECTION. 

But, sir, to return from this digression, to the subject in 
} ian d . — insurrections. The memorialists desire no insur- 
rections, neither have they the slightest expectation, that 
such an effect will result from abolition at the seat of the 
Federal Government. On the contrary, they believe that 
such an act would tend to prevent a calamity so disas- 
trous. True, ' Hope deferred maketh the heart sick ' ; 
— but, hope destroyed maketh the heart mad — ferocious. 
If the slave ever rises, he will be driven to it by the 
goadings of despair. While hope lives he will patiently 
wear his chain. * Emancipate the slaves in the District, 
and the benevolent deed would diffuse hope through the 

* Hon. Mr. Page, of Virginia, in the Congress of the U. States, i<> 
1790, when the question of committing the abolition memorial ot Dr. 
Franklin, was under discussion, said, ' With respect to the alarm that was 
apprehended (in the slave states) he believed there was none; but there 
might be just cause if this memorial was not taken into consideration. 
He placed himself in the condition of a slave. If, as such, he should 
hear that Congress had refused to listen to the suggestions of a respect- 
able portion. >f the community, he should infer, that, the General Govern- 
ment, from which great good was expected to result to every class of citi- 
zens, had shut their ears against the voice of humanity, and he should de- 
spair of any alleviation of the miseries he and his posterity had in pros- 
pect. If any thing could induce him to rebel, it would be a stroke 
like this, impressing on his mind all the horrors of despair.' — Lloyd's 
debates, vol. 3, p. 336. 



HENRY B. STANTON. 61 

entire slave population of the South. Reason teaches 
us this. We naturally infer, that the unemancipated 
slaves, seeing one Legislature do justice to their bound 
brethren, would be inspired with the expectation, that 
their own Legislature, would, influenced by their exam- 
ple, by and by, ' do likewise.' 

JAMES G. BIRNEY'S TESTIMONY. 

Facts corroborate the position. Letters in my posses- 
sion from James G. Birney, Esq. well known to the Com- 
mittee as the gentleman to whom Dr. Channing's recent 
letter was addressed, show that no slaves are so quiet, as 
those inhabiting sections of the country, where emanci- 
pations are most frequent ; none so orderly, as those who 
best understand, to their full extent, and in their true 
character, the efforts now making for their deliverance. 
Surely these facts are something worth, coming from one 
of the most intelligent and pious gentlemen of the south- 
west, who has spent 43 years in the midst of slavery, 
and been himself a slaveholder. Let it also be remem- 
bered, that emancipation in the states of Pennsylvania, 
New York, and New Jersey, did not excite the slaves 
in Maryland and Virginia to insurrection. Then why 
should abolition in the District ? And if it would be 
unjust to these states for Congress to abolish slavery 
there, it was equally unjust to them, for those other 
states to abolish slavery within their borders. And yet, 
I never heard any complaint of injustice on that account. 

ABOLITION BENEFICIAL TO THE SLAVE STATES. 

But, the proposed abolition would be signally benefi- 
cial to the surrounding states. Its local results being 
happy, would demonstrate the safety of emancipation, ex- 
pose the futility of objections to it, and, by inspiring the 



62 REMARKS OF 

southern communities with Courage, pave the way for the 
voluntary removal, by them, of this alarming evil. 

THE DISTRICT AN OASIS. 

Another supposed injurious effect upon the surrounding 
states, from the proposed measure, is, that the District 
would become an asylum for runaway slaves, much to 
the annoyance of the neighboring planters. 

Answer. 1. Let those surrounding states emancipate 
their slaves, and then there would be none to runaway. 

2. Suppose it should become such an asylum. We 
ought to bless God, that there was one Oasis, one green 
spot in this vast desert of human misery. What more 
appropriate asylum for men escaping for freedom, frcm 
* a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more 
misery than ages of that which [we] rose in rebellion 
to oppose,'* than the capital of ' the land of the free, and 
the home of the brave ? ' 

3. But, Sir, look at the alternative. If slavery is 
abolished in the District, says Mr. Pinckney, it will be- 
come the asylum of runaway slaves. Answer. If slav- 
ery is not abolished in the District, it will continue to be 
the asylum for slave-drivers, kidnappers, and brokers in 
human souls. 

4. The objection is absurd, as well as wicked. Every 
free state is now an asylum for runaway slaves, as are 
the West Indies, Mexico, our Western forests, and the 
monarchies of Europe. And will the addition of ten 
miles square to this territory, ruin the slavery of the 
South? Then Heaven speed its downfall ! 



* Jefferson. 



HENRY B. STANTOW, 63 

A DILEMMA. 

Another grave objection has been furiously urged upon 
our notice. Say Southern gentlemen, on the floor of Con- 
gress, ' if slavery is abolished at the seat of the national 
legislature, we cannot bring our servants here/ Answer. 

1. Then go there without servants, as did Roger Sher- 
man. He was not only a shoe-maker, but he brushed 
his own shoes while in Congress. 

2. But I deny the inference. Can't bring their ser- 
vants there ? Northern members find no difficulty in 
taking their servants there. Ah, — but Southerners can't 
take their slaves there. Yes : I now understand the 
gentlemen. They can't take men there, to do their work 
for them, unless they pay them ivages. Surely, to deprive 
them of this ' honorable ' privilege, (for ' they are all hon- 
orable men ! ') would indeed be cruel ! 

3. It would certainly be a mournful calamity, Mr. 
Chairman, if the legislators of ' the freest government on 
earth,' should not have slaves to tremble at their nod, 
while discussing the rights of man ! If the question of 
the recognition of Texan independance were on debate, 
would our Southern brethren not feel the glow of liberty 
warming their bosoms, and setting their tongues on fire, 
unless slaves were crouching around them ? 

4. But, Sir, the alternative is before us. Say the 
South, ' if slavery is abolished at the capital, our members 
cannot carry their slaves there.' The North answers : 
1 if slavery is not abolished there, our members will not 
be able to invite their free constituents there ! ' 

Finally. Perhaps, Sir, (though I care too little about 
it, to investigate it, even to my own satisfaction,) Con- 
gress might pass laws, providing for the deliverance, to 
their masters, of fugitive slaves in the District, and secur- 
ing to its Southern members, while there^ their enslaved 



64 REMARKS OF 

servants. 1 do not believe such laws would be more un- 
constitutional than are those which established slavery in 
the District. 

The Committee then took a recess till seven o'clock, 
P. M. 

Evening Session. The Committee met, pursuant to 
adjournment, in the Representative's Hall. 

In continuance of his argument, Mr. Stanton spoke in 
substance, as follows : — 

Mr. Chairman : 
When the Committee adjourned for a recess, I was 
answering objections to abolition in the District. With 
your leave, I will resume the same subject, after express- 
ing my warmest thanks to the Committee for their patient 
indulgence, in extending to the memorialists, through me, 
so long a hearing. It contrasts generously and honor- 
ably, with the conduct of another Committee of this Legis- 
lature, upon a similar subject, on a former occasion. I 
will first dispose of one or two small objections, and then 
discuss those of weightier importance. 

ABOLITION CONTRARY TO THE WISHES OF MARYLAND 
AND VIRGINIA, 

Maryland and Virginia contend that the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia should not be urged 
contrary to their wishes, because they ceded the territory 
to the General Government.* 



* Whoever will read the del. atcs of the 6rt1 CongresF.onthe subject of 
tli«' location of Lite seal of Government, will perceive, that instead «>(' its 
being considered a favor to the United States for Virginia and Maryland 
iu cede tin' l ten miles square ' to CopgresB, I lie very privilege of doing so 
was a boon for which ihese stairs contended almost ti> ferocity. Con- 
gress did nut ask the land of them. They, on the other band, begged, 



HENRY B. STANTON. 65 

Sir, suppose a farmer in your county should convey to 
his neighbor by deed, in absolute fee simple, ten acres of 
his farm. The sold and the unsold portions contained 
each a noxious swamp. In process of time, the purchas- 
er proposes to drain off his swamp, that it may no lon- 
ger scatter fever and ague through the community. 
Against this, the original holder stoutly protests ; not be- 
cause it would be contrary to the terms of the deed, nor 
bad policy, nor wrong, but, simply because he has not 
got ready to drain off his swamp ! So Maryland and 
Virginia exclaim hotly against abolition in the District, 
not because it would be unconstitutional, or bad policy, 
or injurious, or wrong, but, simply, because t'hey have not 
yet got ready to do likewise ! 

WAIT TILL THE CITIZENS OF THE DISTRICT PETITION. 

It has been urged by Hon. Mr. Wise, of Va., in the 
U. S. House of Representatives, that that body had n» 
right to abolish slavery in the District, ' unless the inhab< 
itants, owning slaves, themselves petition for it.' 

Strange doctrine ! Congress no right thus to do till the 
people petition for it ? When the people petition a legis- 
lative body, do they not ask that body to exercise a power 
it already possesses ? Does the act of petitioning ere* 
ate the power? Are the people of the District able to 
confer power upon Congress? Cite me, Sir, to the arti- 
cie in the Constitution which thus pre-eminently distin- 
guishes this portion of our fellow citizens. The honora- 
ble Virginian, wise as he is, for once, '■ is wise above what 
is written.' 



declaimed, and threatened, to induce that body to accept it. Mr. Lee of 
Virginia, insisted, tkat • if the seat of the Government was not fixed upon 
the Potomac, the faith of all south of that river would be shaken. '--Lloyd's 
Debates, voJL 2. 

6* 



GO REMARKS OF 

THE WISHES OF THE DISTRICT. 

The objection now assumes a more plausible garb. It 
is affirmed that it would be unjust for Congress to exer- 
cise this power, unless the people of the Distriet desire it. 

Plausible as this proposition is, it contains the essence 
of injustice. The national legislature is solemnly bound, 
on principles of common equity, to consult the desires 
and the interests of the slaves, rather than those of the 
masters. The slaves are the injured party, the masters 
the wrong doers. Slavery is an acknowledged evil, ' fraught 
with misery.' Robbery and stealing are also evils. What ! 
shall your Legislature not enact laws against robbery and 
stealing, till highwaymen and thieves desire it? Will you 
wait to be moved by their petitions ? Did the British 
Parliament refuse to abolish the slave trade, till men- 
stealers desired it? till the manufacturers of gags, and 
thumb-screws, and fetters, petitioned them? History in- 
forms us, that it was eloquently urged on the floor of Par- 
liament, that the abolition of the slave trade would ruin 
thousands who had invested their all in ships, whips, 
spoiled meat, hand-cuffs, and other means and facilities 
for conducting the traffic, and therefore, it would be un- 
just for that body to interfere ! The modern objection 
does not disgrace its origin. 

Admit, if you please, that the slaveholders at the capi- 
tal are unwilling to pay their laborers wages. Does that 
make the laws right, under which they perpetrate this in- 
justice? Congress is responsible for the character of its 
laws, whoever they may please or displease. It forges 
the chain, hands it to the slaveholder — he puts it on to 
the heel of the victim. Congress is bound instantly to 
stop forging chains ; or, without a figure, to stop legaliz- 
ing robbery. This done, and slavery dies. 



HENR1T B. STANTON, 67 

Bat, as to the wishes of the people of the District, 
They have again and again asked for modifications of 
their laws j — and in 1827, eleven hundred of the most 
respectable citizens, with Chief Justice Cranch at their 
head, petitioned Congress for the abolition of the slave 
trade, and the gradual abolition of slavery in the District, 
Many of the inhabitants now desire legislative redress; 
but, by Southern intrigue, and because Congress, by 
its conduct, frightens them into silence, their action is 
stiffled.* 

DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION ! 

But, the Union! the union ! abolition in the District 
of Columbia will dissolve the Union ! So says Mr. Pinck- 
ney ; so say all south of the Potomac; so say thousands 
north of it. Sir, I love this Union, because it was form- 
ed to ' establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, pro- 
vide for the common defence, promote the general wel- 
fare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 
our posterity. 'f I would deal candidly and thoroughly with 
this objection, honestly entertained, as I have no doubt it 
is, by thousands. 

THE QUESTION STATED. 

Let us inquire— -first, what would be a dissolution of 
the Union, — and second* the reasons why the South would 
dissolve it. Of these in their order. 

1. After the Revolutionary war, the old states, then 



* It should be borne in mind', that the District has no means of legisla- 
tive redress except from Congress. Some of the worst laws now in lbrce 
in the District, (such as selling free men for their jail fees,) have been re- 
pealed in Maryland since the cession. Hence, the slaves in the District are 
worse off, governed by the free states, than they would be if governed by a 
slave state! 

t Preamble to Ur S* Constitution. 



G8 REMARKS OF 

existing as independent sovereignties, framed and ratified 
the U. S. Constitution, and thus became UNITED States, 
— the Constitution being the connecting chain. To dis- 
solve this Union, it is necessary that one or more of 
these states (or others since admitted) should, by Con- 
vention, or otherwise, declare themselves no longer mem- 
bers of the Confederacy, and organize a seperate and in- 
dependent government. 

% Upon the happening of what event does the South 
propose thus to do 1 The abolition of slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, by Congress. But, has not Congress 
the power to abolish slavery there? Yes; the majority of 
the South admit it, as well as the great mass at the North. 
Whence does Congress derive this power ? From the 
Constitution. It is one of the provisions in the bond of 
Union ; — a bond solemnly ratified by the South. In 
view of the facts, she stands in this attitude, viz : — If 
Congress does what the South has agreed that it may do, 
she will become angry, and dissolve the Union ! In other 
words, she is sick of her bargain, and declares, that if 
Congress does a Constitutional act, she, from spite, will 
do an unconstitutional act ! And this she denominates 
patriotism ! honor ! chivalry ! 

But, Sir, I am of those who regard these threats as the 
idle wind. They have been made too often, and too long, 
to excite alarm. They come, too, from the wrong quarter 
to arouse my fears. They are the vaporings of Hotspurs ; 
mere bravado. There is too much intelligence, too much 
patriotism and integrity — ay, too just an appreciation of 
their own interests, at the south, to tolerate the mad 
scheme. The Riveses and the Clays of that section, are 
unwilling to pay so dear a price for the privilege of being 
ruined. And if they were, THE PEOPLE of the South 
would come to the rescue. 



HENRY B: STANTON. OV 

THE SOUTH WILL LOSE WHAT THEY INTEND TO GAIN. 

Sir, if the slaveholding states should make the removal 
of slavery at the seat of the Federal government, the pre- 
text for dissolving the Union, they would lose the very 
objects they professedly seek to obtain by it ; and this 
truth is so plain, that he that runneth may read it, and a 
way-faring man, though a slaveholder, cannot err in re- 
gard to it. What do they set up as the objects to be 
attained by the dissolution 1 First — the security of their 
slave property, and the perpetuation of the system. Sec- 
and — the stopping of the present anti-slavery agitation ; 
or, Third — if they cannot entirely stop agitation, they 
will, at least, shut out its effects from their borders. 

Now, Sir, does not the South know, that by a sever- 
ance of the Union, she will not only fail to attain either 
of these objects, but, in regard to them all, stand on 
ground far more disadvantageous, than that she now oc- 
cupies? 

W T ILL IT PREVENT ESCAPES 1 

First — as to the security of their slave property, and 
the perpetuation of the system. Under the present com- 
pact, if slaves escape to the free states, we are bound, on 
demand, to deliver them up. And the whole civil and 
military power of the North, may be put in requisition, to 
return the fugitives. Methinks the autocrat of Russia 
could ask no more, to ensure the return of his Polish 
refugees. But, if the Union were dissolved, how altered 
her condition ! Does the South imagine that that act 
will widen the Ohio river, or make the boundary line be- 
the Ancient Dominion and the good old Quaker state of 
Pennsylvania, aught but an imaginary one ? The Uni^n 
being rent, the runaway slave of Virginia comes up to 
the line between slavery and freedom. He hesitates a 



REMARKS OF 



moment with fear; but, gathering fresh courage, he leaps 
it at a bound ! For once, he breathes the elastic and 
thrilling atmosphere of a free state. No bribed dough 
face stands ready to seize him, but warm hearts greet 
him. Turning, he beckons onward his halting compan- 
ions. A black tide pours over the line, and lo ! the 
South is emptied of her slaves ! 

WILL IT PREVENT INSURRECTIONS? 

Again, Sir, under the present compact, if the slaves, 
goaded to madness by their unmitigated bondage, rise in 
insurrection, the whole physical power of the free states, 
is pledged, by Article 1. Sec. 8 of the Constitution, to 
quell the insurgents. The North stands, bayonet in 
hand, over the bosom of the southern slave. This surely 
might satisfy reasonable opposers. But, suppose the 
Union were severed, and the free states released from the 
responsibility of quelling ^insurrections. Then, the in- 
flammable mass at the South, ignited by the incendiary 
declaration, ' Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God ! ' 
explodes, scattering desolation and death on every side ! 
Where «ow, is the boasted chivalry of Virginia and her 
proud sisters ? Buried under an avalanche of ruin ! North- 
ern nerves and bayonets, no longer bound to keep guard, 
while one half of the South put fetters on the heels of 
the other, stand aloof from these sanguinary scenes. Or, if 
that hour should never come, (which Heaven grant !) 
suppose, in process of time, a war should break out be- 
tween these two rival nations, (not an improbable event,) 
how easy for a Northern emissary to cross the line, 
breathe insurrection into the ear of the slave, and then, 
his bloody purpose accomplished, hasten back to his own 
country. Or, a daring leader of the Northern forces, 
inscribing ' freedom ' on his banners, might enter the 



HENRY B. STANTON. [71 

South, and bear off in triumph, thousands of her slaves. 
Sir, the slave states would be insane to dissolve this Union. 
They now stand upon the verge of a frightful precipice. 
But there is hope. Then they would have taken the fatal 
leap. So obvious is this truth, that while Heaven vouch- 
safes to them a modicum of sanity, they will never commit 
this suicidal deed. 

WILL IT STOP AGITATION ? 

Second. The south threatens to secede from the Union, 
as a means of suppressing the present anti-slavery agita- 
tion. Indeed. And does this agitation trouble her ? Doubt- 
less. We recollect Felix trembled. But, are the means 
she proposes to employ, adapted to secure the end? How 
would South Carolina's revolutionizing herself into an in- 
dependent Republic (a difficult task, by the bye, as a ma- 
jority of her inhabitants are slaves!) prevent our agitating 
the question of slavery in the Representatives' Hall of old 
Massachusetts? Or, how could the Constitution of a 
southern republic, handsomely written on parchment, and 
snugly deposited in the desk of its Secretary of State, hin- 
der the publication of anti-slavery tracts, the delivery of 
anti-slavery speeches, the holding of anti-slavery conven- 
tions, and the formation of anti-slavery societies, in free, 
unawed New England ? 1 do know that the dissolution of 
the Union, while it would destroy all pretext for abridging 
the freedom of speech and the press among us, would be 
to minds now torpid, like the galvanic battery, arousing 
them to indomitable action. And, if the south does in- 
deed dread a noise on this subject, she had better not put 
the torch to the magazine of the Union, lest the explosion 
should wake up, not only the moral power of the north, but 
her own slumbering conscience. 



72 REMARKS OF 

WILL IT SHUT OUT ABOLITIONISM? 

But, third: by dissolving connection with the north, the 
slaveholding states will certainly shut out from their bor- 
ders the effects of anti-slavery agitations, if they cannot 
stop them. NEVER ! The effects of anti-slavery agita- 
tions are not hemmed in by state lines, nor circumscribed 
by local boundaries. They are moral in their nature ; 
obey no laws but those of the human mind ; owe allegiance 
to no constitution but that of the immortal soul. Impalpable 
yet real, the truths we proclaim overleap all geographical di- 
visions, and lay their strong grasp upon the conscience. 
Moral light, diffused at the north, is like the Aurora Bore- 
alis. It will travel onward to the south. The slaveholder 
may entrench himself behind bristling bayonets: — but the 
truth, fearless like its Author, breaks through the serried 
legions. At Mason &l Dixon's line, he may pile his pro- 
hibitory statutes to the clouds, as his wall of defence, but 
truth, like light, is elastic and irrepressible : — and, mount- 
in^ upward, will overleap the summit, and penetrate his 
concealment. Yea, Sir, if the Union were rent into ten 
thousand fragments — yet, if on every fragment there was 
a slaveholder, anti-slavery agitation would search him out, 
and scatter upon his naked heart the living coals of truth. 
God has written the verity of our principles on the inside 
of every oppressor in the land. He can destroy the record 
only with his nature. And, if the American slaveholder, 
returning wearied from the destruction of every anti-slave- 
ry pamphlet, and press, and society, and man in the na- 
tion, should seek repose in his chamber, these words, writ- 
ten with the finger of God, would flame out from its walls, 
in letters of blindting intensity: 'Wo unto him that 

DUILDETII HIS HOUSE BY UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, AND HIS CHAM- 
BERS BY WRONG ; THAT USETH HIS NEIGHBOR'S SERVICE 
WITHOUT WAGES, AND CIVETH HIM NOT FOR HIS WORK ! ' 



HENRY B. STANTON. 73 

The dissolution of the Union stop inquiry concerning 
slavery ! Delusive hope. It will multiply it a thousand 
fold; — and the South itself, will contribute largely to the 
increase. The rent cannot be made in a moment. The 
Hotspurs must whip their followers up to the top of their 
courage before they will do the deed. And all this time, 
there will be hot debate among them. Every body in- 
quiring ; — loud discussions in bar rooms and on steam- 
boats; the southern press taking opposite sides; — Legis- 
lative halls the arena of warm dispute ; pulpit clashing 
with pulpit ; — Nullification times come again ; — the old 
Union party once more taking the field ; — and the whole 
South, slaves, free negroes, and all, one foaming sea of 
agitation! And what is the matter? Has Garrison, or 
the Liberator, got among them? Oh no; — but Patriarch 
McDuffie is about dissolving the Union, to perpetuate sla- 
very ; and every body is discussing the question ! To 
thus stop agitation, is like putting out fire with gunpowder. 
Sir; — let the South attempt to divide the Union, and she 
will find herself divided. She knows, that, while on the 
one hand, she will lose every thing, on the other, she will 
gain nothing but what she has already taken. She pro- 
fesses to fear, that, under Sec. 2, Art. 4 of the Constitution, 
giving the citizens of each State, the privileges of citizens 
in all the States, incendiaries will enter her borders; — 
and so she's for nullification. But, that section she has 
already nullified, and has declared every Abolitionist who 
enters her territory, an outlaw. Does she hope, that' by 
disunion, she will prevent Anti-Slavery publications from 
entering her territories, through the public mails? That 
she has already attempted, by her mail Committees, Lynch 
clubs, and statutory provisions, 
7 



74 REMARKS OF 

THERE IS NO UNION. 

And shall Northern men dread disunion, lest they lose 
these benefits ? Sir, they are already lost ! For tens of 
thousands in this land, yielding to none others in love to 
their country and to all its citizens, there is no Union. 
To them, it is already dissolved. A price is on their 
heads, in one half the States of this Republic. Such 
men, at least, will not be driven from their duty, by the 
threat of disunion. And, it is time the entire North be- 
gan to reflect, that this Union was formed to ' promote the 
general welfare ; ' and not the welfare of the few, at the 
expense of the many. 

THE THREAT NOT SINCERE. 

Upon the South, this Union confers incalculable bene- 
fits. She knows it. Her safety, — her existence, depend 
upon its continuance. She feels it. The majority of her 
citizens appreciate, in some degree, its blessings ; and 
when the crisis comes, will, at all hazards, prolong its ex- 
istence. There is worth, intelligence, patriotism, integri- 
ty, at the South. Hotspurs will bluster, and threaten. 
It's their vocation. They have plied it long. 

Once they demanded a tariff, and threatened to rend 
the Union if we didn't yield. We bowed the head, in 
humble compliance. Again they said, ' let Missouri enter 
the Union, or it's dissolved.' We bowed again. ' Repeal 
the protective tariff, or we'll withdraw.' Prostrate, we 
kissed the dust. ' Touch not the District of Columbia ; — 
cease your interference with our domestic institutions ; — 
gag your citizens, and yoke your working men, or we'll 
split the Union.' The north stands erect! 

In conclusion, Sir, I remark, that the right of the South 



HENRY B. STANTON. 75 

to dissolve her connection with her sister States, without 
their consent, is not the doctrine of this nation ; — and 
should she, madly bent on ruin, attempt to carry away the 
main pillars of the Republic, the whole weight of the 
General Government will be precipitated upon her head. 

DUTY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Mr. Chairman, T now come to the last topic proposed for 
our examination ; to wit : — the duty of Massachusetts. 

That the Legislature of this Commonwealth has the right 
to grant the prayer of these Memorialists, is conceded. 
Our inquiry is, ought the right to be exercised? Sir, sla- 
very is acknowledged by your State, to be a system at war 
with the fundamental principles of our free institutions, 
unjust, cruel, wicked. Then is she bound to exert her 
utmost political and moral power, for its destruction. To 
terminate slavery in the District of Columbia, is within 
the power of the free States. And, so long as Massachu- 
setts remains a member of this Union, and sends Senators 
and Representatives to Congress, she has political respon- 
sibilities in regard to that question. The God of Nations 
has laid them upon her. She cannot escape them. If 
she refuse to discharge these responsibilities, she is recre- 
ant to her trusts. The seven thousand bondmen of that 
District, lift their manacled hands to her for redress. It 
is noble to protect the weak. The freedom of her own 
citizens, the perpetuity of our republic, the cause of po- 
litical and moral reform abroad, are jeoparded by the tol- 
eration of slavery at the seat of the Federal Government. 
For the rescue of these from immolation, she is bound to 
go to the utmost limit of her Constitutional power. 

SHALL OUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS BE SUSTAINED ? 

The Legislature should grant the prayer of the Memo- 



76 REMARKS OF 

rialists, because of its influence upon her Senators and 
Representatives in Congress. To sustain, to encourage 
them, in their noble stand in defence of the right of peti- 
tion, and the freedom of debate, is her solemn duty. 
Thrust out as they are into the midst of this angry excite- 
ment, and contending for constitutional rights, at the peril 
of their lives, it would be generous in your body to throw 
around them the shield of its approval. To refuse so to 
do, when requested by the people, would be ignoble, un- 
just. Your members need this ; they ask it. In an inter- 
view with one of them* during the last summer, he with 
much feeling urged the importance of pouring in petitions 
to your Legislature, praying them to instruct their Sena- 
tors, and request their Representatives, to act and vote for 
the abolition of slavery in the District. 'This,' said he, 
' will invigorate us, and we shall feel that we stand on the 
terra firma of an approving public sentiment at home. 
Sir, the people have brought their request to your halls. 
Will you be deaf to their prayer? Public sentiment is 
ripe for this measure. You are its organ. Our members 
of Congress have the right to expect, that you, in the 
name of the people, will give them the cheering word, 
'onward!' Let me again read from the letter of the 
venerable John Quincy Adams, before cited. "Will his 
voice be disregarded in this Hall ? " I feel much encour- 
aged by your approbation, and that of others holding opin- 
ions the same as yours, to continue in the course which I 
have hitherto, as a member of the House of Representa- 
tives, pursued with regard to the right of Petition. I do 
not forsee that I shall alter that course, while I shall con- 
tinue in the public service. How far it will be sanction- 
ed, even by the majority of my own constituents, is yet to 
be seen." 

* Hon. Nathaniel B. Borden., 



HENRY B. STANTON. 77 

Sir : — it is not yet to be seen. It is seen ; — written in 
the history of the past. The Old Colony desert her dis- 
tinguished champion for defending her cherished princi- 
ples ? Never ! 

Says Mr. Adams further : — " The struggle in the House 
of Representatives, for and against the reception of Peti- 
tions for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the 
District of Columbia, is merely the symptom of a deep- 
seated disease, preying upon the vitals of this Union ; — 
and that disease is Slavery. Now, if it were in the power 
of Congress, to bar the doors of the Capitol, till the ele- 
ments shall be consumed with fervent heat, as inexorably 
against the cry of Justice, of Mercy, of human reason, 
and human feeling for the Emancipation of the hereditary 
slave, as Dante says the Gates of Hell were closed against 
Hope, still the disease would continue to prey upon the 
vitals of the Union; — and that disease will prey till radi- 
cally healed, or till it shall terminate in death." 

How like the prophecies of Jefferson! Dissolve the 
Union if we abolish slavery in the District '? Sir, if sla- 
very is not abolished, not only there, but throughout the 
country, this nation is abolished. In such a crisis, has 
Massachusetts any interests at stake ? Has her Legisla- 
ture any duties to discharge? The PEOPLE put to you 
these interrogatories. But to the letter. " The symptom 
of the disease is an inflexible determination to gag, and to 
hear nothing about it. The terror at the thought of hear- 
ing the truth, smothers debate, and strangles the right of 
Petition. **** I believe it is the opinion of all my col- 
leagues, that my opinions in favor of the right of Petition, 
have been sufficiently manifested in the House ; and they 
have some doubts how far they will be sustained by the 
people of the Commonwealth.' Sir : the Commonwealth 
will sustain him ! What! — shall Massachusetts, the State 
7* 



78 REMARKS OF 

which in the days of her colonial weakness, shielded the 
hunted judges of Charles the First, from the active ven- 
geance of England, give up her own great citizen to the 
tender mercies of slavery ? Shall she, who threw around 
the proscribed and outlawed Adams of the Revolution, a 
wall of republican hearts, shrink back from sustaining 
one, who, in his love of liberty and hatred of oppression., 
does no dishonor to his illustrious namesake ? 

Shall Massachusetts stand erect no longer,- 

But stoop in chains upon her downward way, 
Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger 
Day alter day. 

Oh no— methinks from all her wild green mountains — 

From valleys where her slumbering fathers lie— 
From her blue rivers and her welling fountains, 
And clear, cold sky ! 

From her rough coast and isles, which hungry ocean 

Gnaws with his surges— from the fisher's skiff, 
WitO white sail swaying to the billow's motion, 
Round rock ar:d cliff. 

From the free fireside of her unbought farmer — 
From her free laborer at his loom and wheel ; 
From the brown smith-shop, where beneath the hammer 
Rings the red steel ! 

From each and all, if God hath not forsaken 

Our State, and left us to an evil choice, 
Loud as the summer thunder-bolt shall waken- 
A People's voice ! 



MASSACHUSETTS ALWAYS AN ANTI-SLAVERY STATE. 

Mr. Chairman: Massachusetts should assume the posi- 
tion to which she is called by these memorialists, to sus- 
tain before the nation her ancient high character as an 
Anti-Slavery State. Let us recite her history. Slavery 
in Massachusetts was never the creature of her laws. 
Her pilgrim founders never created it. It indeed existed,. 
but only as a nuisance. It never clothed itself in the au- 
thority of her fundamental law, but stood only upon its 



HENRY B. STANTON. 79 

Own execrable foundation of Robbery and Wrong. It 
never, thank Heaven, polluted the ermine of her judiciary. 
In the Massachusetts Colony, as early as 1641, " It is or- 
dered by the Court and the authority thereof, that there 
shall never be any bond-slavery, villenage, or captivity 
among us, unless it be [such] lawful captives taken in 
war, as willingly sell themselves, or are sold to us; and 
such shall have the liberties and Christian usage, which the 
law of God ? established in Israel concerning such persons, 
doth morally require."* This law was not a dead letter. 
Chief Justice Parsons says, " If the master was guilty of a 
cruel or unreasonable castigation of his slave, he was lia- 
ble to be punished for a breach of the peace, and I believe 
the slave was allowed to demand sureties of the peace, 
against a violent and barbarous master. Under these reg- 
ulations, the treatment of slaves was in general mild and 
humane, and they suffered hardships not greater than hired 
servants."! Sir, these provisions cut up by the roots, the 
essentials of the system. Protection, such as the laws of 
Moses afforded, entirely destroys absolute chattel slavery. 
Still, it should be remembered, that even this system was 
merely permitted, and was never sanctioned by the laws of 
the Commonwealth, 

'In 1770, negroes [in Massachusetts] began to sue 
their masters for their freedom, and for payment of all 
services rendered after the age of 21. Many actions for 
that purpose were brought, between this time and the 
Revolution, all of which were successful.'! 

Yes, Sir, her courts of Justice were temples of refuge 
to the slave, even before her Bill of Rights, in 1780, sign- 

* General laws and liberties of Massachusetts Bay, Chap. 12, § 2. 

f Winchendon v. Hatfield, 4 Mass. Rep. 127. 

X Report of a Committee of the House of Representative* of Mass., by 
Theodore Lyman, Jr., in 1822. 



§0 REMARKS OF 

ed the death warrant of the system. The Bill of Rights ! 
What is it ? It pledges forever the moral and political 
power of the Commonwealth, on the side of freedom. 
It annihilated slavery in our own borders, and proclaimed 
in the ear of the world, that th© right to liberty is inalien- 
able. 

At another memorable epoch, — the war of the Revolu- 
tion,— in defence of the same great principles, Massa- 
chusetts rushed earliest to the battle field. - Not content 
with defending her own territory, she generously made 
common cause with her sister colonies. That her patri- 
otism was co-extensive with the entire nation, is recorded 
in the blood of her sons, on the soil of every state from 
Maine to Georgia. And. Sir, the descendants of those 
who perished untimely at Boston and Bunker Hill, whose 
bones whitened the plains of Concord and Lexington, 
whose blood fattened the soil of Camden and Yorktown, 
now walk erect in their own Massachusetts, inhale the 
free spirit, and cherish the free principles of their sires, 
and will dishonor their memories, never. In their love of 
liberty, and hatred of oppression, the sons would equal 
the fathers. Like them, their principles they will yield 
only with their lives. But, unlike them, they will not 
do evil that good may come. In this moral contest for 
holy freedom, their weapons are truth and lo\e; their 
trust, in the Prince of Peace. 

On the ratification of the U. S. Constitution, and in the 
memorable Missouri contest, this Commonwealth main- 
tained her integrity. 



HENRY B. STANTON. 81 

SOUTHERN AGGRESSION. HOW MET. 

But her recent history ; — would that it had never been 
written. In the conflict of slavery with freedom, which 
has shaken this nation for the last two years, where has 
been the moral power of Massachusetts ? — Sir, the friends 
of liberty have maintained their principles, even in this 
Commonwealth, at the hazard of their lives. Gags have 
been thrust into their mouths ; a price has been set upon 
their heads. I see before me in this Hall, one for whose 
life a sovereign state.* has, by a deliberate act of its 
Legislature, olTered a reward of five thousand dollars ! 
What was his crime ? He was guilty of echoing the 
principles of John Adams and Elbridge Gerry, of pro- 
claiming the beautiful and Christ-like sentiment: 'My 
country is the world— my countrymen are all mankind.'! It 
is not incendiary, even in this Hall, to pronounce the name 
of William Lloyd Garrison. Where has been the response 
of Massachusetts to this unparalleled outrage? However 
she may disregard the claims of her citizen to protection, 
posterity will do justice to his memory; and in comino- 
years, the tears of an enfranchised race shall water his 
grave. What was the answer given at the last session of 
your Legislature, to the insulting demands of Georgia, 
Virginia and South Carolina, with which the Governor 
loaded yonder table ? A Report admitting the justice of 
those demands; and, in the language of the chief magis- 
trate of Pennsylvania, ' a base bowing of the knee to the 
dark spirit of slavery!' Sir, that Report libelled the 
people of Massachusetts, and they have buried it beyond 
the reach of resurrection. 

During the past winter, the petitioners for the abolition 
of slavery in the District, have been stigmatized on the 

* Georgia. f Motto of the Liberator. 



82 REMARKS OF 

floor of Congress as ' the tohite slaves of the North.' 
Sir, who are these petitioners ? The president of your 
Seriate, the chaplain of your House, members of both 
branches of your Legislature, William Ellery Charming, 
and John Pierpont, are of the number. The character 
of the entire body of these petitioners, amounting to more 
than thirty thousand of the inhabitants of this Common- 
wealth, not less than the object of their petitions, should 
shield them from insult. At least, their own Legislature 
should sternly rebuke the assassins of their reputation. 

In defence, then, of her own character, to preserve 
her own consistency, and maintain her influence among 
her sister states, Massachusetts should lead rather than 
follow, in this cause. Vermont, true to her principles, 
has already uttered through her Legislature, a manly re- 
buke of Southern arrogance. The Hon. Thaddeus Ste- 
vens, at the last session of the Pennsylvania Legislature, 
presented a report in regard to slavery in the District, 
worthy the times of Hush and Franklin. And the Gov- 
ernor of that state uttered sentiments in his late mes- 
sage, which might fitly be echoed by the Chief Magistrate 
even of this Commonwealth. 



IT IS NOT TOO LATE. 

It has been arged as an objection to action on this sub- 
ject at the present session of the Legislature, that it is so 
late, Congress being on the eve of adjourning, it will 
accomplish no good. 

Sir, it is never too late to do right. But, the memorialists 
do not expect that the expression of sentiment they now ask 
of your honorable body, will immediately accomplish the 
ultimate object they scek;^ — the abolition of slavery in the 
District. But, that such an expression will constitute 



HENRY B. STANTON. 



S3 



one in a train of influences, which, in due time, will lead 
to that result. Reforms move slowly — and only because 
reforming influences are dilatory in applying the pro- 
pelling power. By prompt, uncompromising, lofty ac- 
tion, at this crisis, the Legislature might revolutionize the 
public sentiment of New England, and bring the entire 
North to reflection. The time is rapidly approaching, 
when this cause will not need your aid. The world knows 
that slavery must die. Some will peril their all for its 
destruction. Others will save their strength that they 
may shout over its downfall. Generosity aids an unpopu- 
lar cause : — calculating expediency worships the star of 
the ascendant. Integrity will maintain the right, though 
it stand alone. The tide of intelligent sympathy for the 
bondman, is accumulating in strength. Patriots and 
Christians will contribute to swell it. Popularity-hunters 
and worshippers of Mammon, will wait to take it at its 
flood. It shall sweep them away ! Sooner or later, this 
question must be met, and determined here. The gen- 
tleman who preceeded me (Mr. Hillard,) uttered the bold 
sentiment, that ' through Congress or, over Congress, this 
question will go.' I respond to it, and add, that through 
the Legislature, or over the Legislature, this question will 
go. I know the men who are engaged in this cause. 
They have no selfish aims. They are impelled to action 
by their duty to God, and their fellow men. They are 
of all creeds and of all parties. And, Sir, that political 
party, which, whatever may be the pretext, shall inter- 
fere with its progress, or lay its hand upon the ark of 
Free Discussion, will fall like Dagon before it. There 
are ten thousand men in this state, who will no longer 
bow the knee to the political Baals, — who, for this cause, 
are ready instantly to sacrifice all party considerations. 



M REMARKS OF HENRY B. STANTON. 

Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen of the Committee : — 
You have heard the prayer of the memorialists. Shall it 
be granted T- 1 — They ask it not to subserve party purposes 
or sectarian objects ; not for themselves, but for their 
country, — nor for their country only, but for the world ; 
not for the present age merely, but for all coming time. 
They ask it in the name of humanity, outraged and bleed- 
ing; of Liberty, sacrificed on her own altars; of Relig- 
ion, wrested to sanction odious oppression; and, above 
all, in the name of Jehovah, insulted in the imbrut- 
ing of His own image. 



[Mr. Stanton concluded by expressing his sincere thanks 
to the Committee for their courtesy and attention, during the 
protracted remarks which he hat! felt it his duty to offer,] 




















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